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2023 MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENTS of the Biden-Harris Administration

US employers in the private sector added an estimated 89,000 jobs in September, a much lower total than expected and a potential indication of a sharp pullback in the labor market, payroll processor ADP reported Wednesday. The September tally landed well below economists’ estimates for 153,000 jobs added, as well as August’s upwardly revised total of 180,000 jobs added. It’s the slowest pace of job growth reported by ADP since January 2021. “We are seeing a steepening decline in jobs this month,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, in a statement Wednesday morning. “Additionally, we are seeing a steady...

New data shows that buying a home requires a large slice of income in 2023, and thus it has become the most unaffordable housing market since 1984. In order to compare home affordability over time, researchers at Black Knight, a mortgage technology and data provider, analyzed home prices, interest rates and income levels in each month dating back to 1975. They calculated the mortgage payment required at each point in time to purchase the median-priced home using a 20% down 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. To provide a relative comparison, the company then calculated the share of median household income needed to...

President Joe Biden has a lot in common with one of his fellow Democratic White House predecessors, according to columnist and author Kimberley Strassel. In her new book “The Biden Malaise: How America Bounces Back From Joe Biden’s Dismal Repeat of the Jimmy Carter Years,” Strassel details the parallels between Jimmy Carter’s 1977-1981 presidency and Biden’s today. Of course, after Carter came President Ronald Reagan, and while Strassel says there is no copy of Reagan running for president in 2024, candidates should learn from Reagan’s optimism and vision for the country. Strassel, a member of The Wall Street Journal’s editorial...

Last week, Joe Biden showed what it looks like when the ruling class loses all connection with the realities of the pain and stress of the people it serves. His White House shindig to celebrate his own economic accomplishments was an orgy of self-back-patting and bragging over the Inflation Reduction Act. Experts agree that it won’t reduce inflation, and there was a bit of irony to the fact that stocks plunged (and with them many ordinary people’s retirement savings) over terrible inflation news even as Biden was speaking. (snip) All of this happened just two weeks after Biden had announced...

The chance of an economic "soft landing" has faded, and the Fed is pushing for a "growth recession." The phrase describes a period of below-average growth, rising unemployment, and slowing inflation. The Fed chair said that while it'd "bring some pain," letting inflation stay high would be worse. In an ideal world, the Federal Reserve has already vanquished pandemic-era inflation while keeping unemployment at historic lows and avoiding a recession. Hopes for such an outcome are all but entirely dashed, and the Fed has switched to plan B. The central bank's message at its annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,...

President Joe Biden said Americans are 'really, really down' amid record inflation and the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic – but said a recession is 'not inevitable.' He made the comments in a 30-minute sit down interview – his first formal sit-down since February, when he spoke to NBC and called interviewer Lester Holt a 'wise guy' over his inflation comments. This time, he said a recession is not inevitable and bristled at claims by Republican lawmakers that last year's COVID-19 aid plan was fully to blame for inflation reaching a 40-year high, calling that argument 'bizarre.' He spoke to...

How bad are things for Joe Biden? On top of the latest poll showing him with a minuscule 33% approval rating, here comes a certified member of the liberal media noting the similarities between Biden's presidency and that of Jimmy Carter.On Friday's Morning Joe, Ed Luce was invited to discuss his current Financial Times column, "America's Nagging Echoes of the 1970s." Luce saw parallels in terms of inflation, crime on the rise, and threats from Moscow. But the most dread similarity he drew was: "The sense of drift, the general sense of drift. The sense we have a president that...

"For More Malaise, Vote Democrat 2022!"That could go down as the worst political slogan ever. But bizarrely, Democrats seem to have adopted "America in malaise" as a central theme of their political marketing plan. Kamala Harris, channeling Jimmy Carter at his nadir, kicked off the gloom 'n doom in an interview with Judy Woodruff on PBS over the weekend, saying there was a "level of malaise" in America. And then this morning, Democrat flak Bakari Sellers, a former South Carolina elected state official who doubles as a CNN political commentator, also employed the m-word, speaking of: "The malaise we’re in...

Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged a “level of malaise” among Americans — and channeled one of the lowest moments of Jimmy Carter’s presidency — in an interview this week. “I fully appreciate that there is a level of malaise,” Harris said Thursday during an appearance on “PBS Newshour,” in answer to a question about why President Joe Biden’s social spending agenda has stalled.

"President-elect" Joe Biden, is constantly nattering on about light and darkness. Plagiarizing Peggy Noonan, he did it throughout his presidential campaign: Biden vows to end 'season of darkness' as he accepts Democratic presidential nomination -The Guardian, August 20, 2020Joe Biden Frames Election As Battle Of Light And Dark As He Accepts Democratic Nomination -Forbes, August 20, 2020Biden vows to defeat Trump, end US ‘season of darkness’ -Associated Press, August 21, 2020DNC 2020: Biden vows to end Trump's 'season of darkness' -BBC, August 21, 2020"We're about to go into a dark winter": Biden says Trump has no plan for coronavirus -CBS...

Liberal journalist Hendrik Hertzberg courted controversy Sunday by bashing President Trump and openly questioning in a tweet: “Time for a military coup?” After a request for comment, the left-wing New Yorker magazine reporter weakly attempted to defend himself in a tweet, claiming he was being “sarcastic.” Hertzberg, a longtime political commentator and staff writer at the New Yorker, was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and later served as then-President Jimmy Carter’s chief White House speechwriter. Over three hours after his initial tweet made waves, Hertzberg followed up by tweeting: “As somebody or other once said, I was being...

Former President Jimmy Carter made his feelings known on a Donald Trump victory in 2020, saying if Trump were reelected for a second term it would be "a disaster." The former commander-in-chief, speaking at a town hall at the Carter Center in Atlanta Tuesday night, said he had not decided yet who he would vote for, but noted he voted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic primary. "I'm going to keep an open mind. One of the major factors I will have in my mind is who can beat Trump," Carter said as the...

Weeks shy of his 95th birthday, former President Jimmy Carter said Tuesday he doesn’t believe he could have managed the most powerful office in the world at 80 years old. Carter, who earlier this year became the longest lived chief executive in American history, didn’t tie his comments to any of his fellow Democrats running for president, but two leading 2020 candidates, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, would turn 80 during their terms if elected. Biden is 76. Sanders is 78. “I hope there’s an age limit,” Carter said with a laugh as he answered audience questions at his annual...

March 21, 2019, marks yet another milestone. While it is not his birthday, Carter becomes the oldest living former president in United States history.At the age of 94 years and 172 days, he passes George H.W. Bush, who was 94 years, 171 days when he died last November.

Jon Meacham is no conservative. The Pulitzer-winning historian is, after all, a former editor of Time and Newsweek. Which makes his declaration about President Obama that much more damning. Asked on today's Morning Joe for a historical analogy to Barack Obama, Meacham harkened back to Jimmy Carter: "three years into his administration, [Carter] giving a speech about this very subject, saying that there was a crisis of the American spirit . . . And a lot of people thought that there wasn't a crisis in the American spirit, there was a crisis in the American presidency. And I think that's...

The August jobs report was hardly reassuring.  On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported net job creation of 173,000, far below estimates.  There's no way to sugar-coat it, though White House officials attempted to do just that.  They pointed out that the unemployment rate had fallen to 5.1%.  But that was because another 200,000 workers had simply given up trying to find a good job. Good jobs are not being created because economic expansion has stalled.  And expansion has stalled because Obama has presided over the greatest assault on free enterprise in our nation's history.   It didn't...

snip “I believe Jesus would,” Carter said when asked whether Jesus would approve of gay marriage. “I don’t have any verse in scripture ... I believe that Jesus would approve gay marriage, but that's just my own personal belief. I think Jesus would encourage any love affair if it was honest and sincere and was not damaging to anyone else, and I don't see that gay marriage damages anyone else." Carter, a born-again Christian and Baptist, said he still teaches Sunday school whenever he attends his home church. He. said he has never ran across “any really serious conflicts” between...

From the man who brought you malaise, now an even more depressingly negative view of America . . . On today's Morning Joe, Jimmy Carter declared that America is in "inevitable decline." But no finger-pointing at President Obama, please: Carter declared that the decline is "not because of any defect or fault on the part of the President of the United States." Cue the Cole Porter: it's just one of those things. View the video here.

We're about to get some terrible news about the US economy. Sort of. On Friday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET, the Bureau of Economic Analysis will release its second estimate of first quarter GDP, which is expected to show the economy contracted 0.8% in the first quarter. The initial reading on first quarter GDP, released on April 29, showed the economy grew just 0.2%. Ahead of that report, Wall Street expected the economy grew 1% to start 2015. Subsequent data, however, showed that the economy was likely even weaker than first estimated to start the year. Some economists, however, either...