On a periodic basis we do some posts that fall under the theme of “by the numbers.” Rather than trust what the American political class tells us about reality, we like to examine the real numbers and the real reality in the world to understand what is actually going on. Relying on politicians, and their cohorts in the media, to tell us what is reality is always a sucker bet. They have their own agendas and goals, usually centering around their needs and self-enrichment. So we need to look at the reality of the numbers to determine what is really going on.
Previous analyses of “by the numbers” can be accessed by entering the phrase in the search box above. We look at the numbers to truly find out how good, not likely, or bad, most likely, the American political class is doing in managing our tax dollars, protecting our freedoms, and resolving major issues that affect all of us.
1)We have often, including our previous post, discussed the real possibility that a major American city (NYC, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago) would descend into a financial death spiral and go bankrupt. This would happen when businesses and residents flee a city because of high taxes, crime, or a deteriorating quality of life and in the process take their tax dollars with them.
Rather than reduce spending to match the lower tax revenue, these city politicians typically raise taxes to make up the shortfall. This results in more residents and businesses leaving, reducing the tax base and tax stream further and the death spiral is in place.
For the longest time, we had believed that Chicago would go bankrupt first, especially given its violent crime rate increases and also its high local tax impacts. More recently our attention has focused on San Francisco with its high homelessness rate, its high and violent crime rate, its high taxes, and the hollowing out of its business districts since a lot of workers never returned to downtown and continue to work remotely after the pandemic.
But now it looks like New York City and its Mayor is giving both Chicago and San Francisco a run for the money as far as which city goes bankrupt first:
NYC politicians including its current mayor, Eric Adams, had always boasted that they were a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants.
They claimed that they were compassionate and caring and illegal immigrants were welcomed even though they had broken the nation’s immigration laws.
However, with Biden opening the border with virtually no border security in place, thousands and thousands of illegal immigrants have flocked to Adams’ sanctuary city
As a result, over 100,000 illegal immigrants have come to the city, overwhelming the city’s ability to shelter, feed, and care for them.
The city has already spent $1.5 billion on the problem.
It is expected to spend a whopping $12 billion over the next three years for the continued privilege of being a sanctuary city.
The mayor has already announced that other parts of the city budget will be cut 5% in order to free up funds to handle the illegal immigration problem he has helped create.
He warned that up to 15% may be cut out of city services for real Americans and NYC residents to fund the illegal immigrant crunch.
Think about how many more police officers, fire personnel, EMT personnel, teachers, etc. could be hired to serve NYC residents with that $12 billion. Think about how worse off the quality of life will become for NYC residents if the city reduces city services by 15% to fund the illegal immigration issue. Lower quality of life, city government services cut, more fuel to feed that out migration and further reduce the tax base of the city,, further reducing the tax revenue stream and accelerating the financial death spiral.
And to prove that American politicians do not understand basic economic principles: “We should increase taxes because it’s economically just policy to offset all costs for our state to function,” said state Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn). Yeah, good idea: raise taxes, drive more taxpayers out of your state, and enjoy the spiral downward.
2) It was recently uncovered that Biden has sent about $110 billion of American taxpayer money to help fight the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also has made absolutely no diplomatic effort to end the war but that failure can wait for another post.
Think about how much good that $110 billion could do for needy Americans:
At any time there are usually upwards of 600,000 homeless Americans living on the street.
A little research shows that the average nightly rate to stay in an American hotel room is about $150.
That means that Biden’s $110 billion that he sent to Ukraine could purchase about 730 million hotel stays for one night.
If you divide that 730 million hotel stays by 600,000 homeless Americans then each homeless American could stay at a decent hotel for about 3 years and 4 months.
And the numbers are definitely higher since some of those 600,000 homeless Americans are family units with kids so each of the 600,000 would not each need their own room.
He fails to diplomatically do anything, never mind be successful at it, to resolve the conflict and it costs the American taxpayer $110 billion and leaves 600,000 Americans still homeless on the street.
3)By the way, staying with the $110 billion:
The average cost to feed a homeless American in a shelter is just under $3.00 per meal.
Thus, that $110 billion could provide about 3.3 billion shelter meals.
That comes out to about 1,800 meals for every homeless American.
That comes out to about 5 years of meals, three meals a day, for every one of those 600,000 homeless Americans.
Such a waste of money because of Biden's diplomatic failure and his priority of providing Ukrainians with weapons while Americans go hungry and homeless.
4)Besides wasting over $100,000,000,000 on the endless Ukrainian/Russian war while millions of Americans go hungry, homeless, and in need of drug addiction treatment, Biden’s economic policies have been brutal when it comes to the daily costs and expenses of regular Americans:
On average, food prices are up about 20% since Biden took office, less than 3 years ago.
Overall prices are up 17%.
The country’s poverty level increased for the first time in over 10 years according to the Census Bureau.
The poverty rate rose to 12.4% in 2022, up from 7.8% in 2021, up more than 50% in one year.
This should be no surprise since the U.S. real median household income decreased by 2.3% to $74,580 in 2022 while year over year inflation went up 7.8%.
What a mess: Americans are poorer since Biden came into office and yet illegal immigrants and the Ukrainians are financially better off, courtesy of the American taxpayer. What a perverted way to run a country.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:
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