By Philip Klein
Friday, March 25, 2022
In response to gas prices hovering around $6 in
California, Governor Gavin Newsom has proposed providing residents
debit cards of $400 per car. His idea is part of a long tradition of Democrats
attempting to pitch government handouts as a solution to higher prices.
Newsom announced the policy in a video standing in a parking lot full of cars in his
salesman suit, looking like he was publicizing great savings at the biggest
sales event of the spring. “That direct relief will address the issue that we
all are struggling to address, and that’s the issue of gas prices,” he
declared.
Under the plan, every household would be able to claim
the payout for up to two cars, meaning as much as $800. It is slated to cost $9
billion at a time when the state is running a surplus, having been helped last
year by the injection of a windfall of money from the federal
“Covid relief” bill that was pitched as emergency aid to desperately
cash-strapped states.
In practice, the idea is ridiculous, as it won’t do
anything to actually address higher gas prices, and it would likely trigger
price hikes by flooding the system with more cash, increasing the ability of
individuals to pay, and thus increasing demand relative to supply.
Although the White House, which considered a similar
idea, according to Axios, ultimately thought better of it,
President Biden has followed a similar tactic of trying to conflate subsidies
to individuals with addressing the underlying problem of rising prices.
When all else failed, Biden and his allies began arguing
that his Build Back Better plan — once valued at $3.5 trillion — was actually
an inflation-fighting tool. Even though the absurd talking point had been
repeatedly debunked, Biden revived the argument during his State of the Union
address, in a desperate Hail Mary to get Senator Joe Manchin back to the
negotiating table.
In the speech, he attempted to rebrand his agenda, even a
scaled-down version of which would spend trillions of dollars at a time of
historic debt levels, as his “plan to fight inflation.” The gist of the
argument was that because it spends oodles of money subsidizing child care,
education, and housing, that it is somehow fighting inflation.
But there is, once again, a huge distinction between
reducing the cost of something and simply giving people money toward the
purchase of something. Giving people more money to spend on child care
(especially when coupled with more federal regulations) drives up the cost,
which actually makes those who do not qualify for subsidies even worse off.
This is not a new trick for Democrats. It is something
that we also saw, most prominently, during the Obamacare debate.
Back when the law was being debated in 2009–2010, it was
clear that by requiring insurers to offer insurance to everybody, restricting
the ability of carriers to charge more based on health status, and mandating
that they cover a wide array of medical services deemed essential by the
federal government, premiums would rise.
Nonetheless, the bill was named the Affordable Care Act,
and Barack Obama and his allies spent much of the debate trying to obfuscate
the issue of premiums. They accused opponents of misinformation and argued that
because lower-income Americans would be receiving subsidies to purchase health
insurance, premiums would actually go down.
Once Obamacare became law and was implemented, the
reality set in. Premiums skyrocketed for exactly the same reasons that
opponents said they would. And those who earned too much to qualify for
subsidies were significantly worse off.
Eventually, when Biden came in, he addressed this issue
by using the “Covid relief” package to temporarily make health-insurance
subsidies more generous. He wanted to extend this policy as part of Build Back
Better, and used this as another way to make his case that his plan would
actually fight inflation.
The current inflation crisis has been fueled by a combination
of runaway national debt, a lax monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, and a
historically unique disruption to the normal functioning system of supply and
demand that works to keep prices stable. Throwing more money at the problem is
not actually going to solve the problem — it will only make it worse.
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