WASHINGTON–Steve Moore, chief economist at FreedomWorks, issued a stern warning Monday that recent bank collapses may be “just the tip of the iceberg” of Biden’s failed economic policies.
In an appearance on Fox News, Moore told Harris Faulkner that the Biden administration’s spending caused the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, leading to financial problems for many major banks.
“I agree with the president that we don’t have an overall banking crisis. The system is sound, but I do think you have a lot of major banks that are in some trouble. And SVB, the Silicon Valley Bank, may just be the tip of the iceberg here,” Trump’s former White House adviser said of the current economic situation. “And I think it’s important for people to understand how this potential banking crisis happened. It’s not because there aren’t enough bank regulators, as Biden is trying to say. It’s because of the massive inflation and the trillions and trillions of dollars of borrowing that the federal government has done that has put our financial system in great jeopardy and great peril.”
“You can’t just keep doing this month after month, year after year, borrowing trillions and trillions of dollars. And so what happened, because of the Biden spending and debt policies, is that not only did inflation go up, but interest rates have gone up,” Moore added. “Harris, as you know, the Fed has had to raise interest rates eight or nine times, and they’re talking about more interest rate increases to come. And that’s caused a lot of financial problems for these big banks is the interest rates go up.”
Biden responded Monday to the economic crisis, stating that Americans can “feel confident” in their banking system after his administration’s response to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank last week.
“No losses will be borne by the taxpayers,” Biden said. “Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the deposit insurance fund. Because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve reinforced its inflation fight Wednesday by raising its key interest rate for the seventh time this year and signaling more hikes to come. But it announced a smaller hike than it had in its past four meetings at a time when inflation is showing signs of easing.
The Fed made clear, in a statement and a news conference by Chair Jerome Powell, that it thinks sharply higher rates are still needed to fully tame the worst inflation bout to strike the economy in four decades.
The central bank boosted its benchmark rate a half-point to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, its highest level in 15 years. Though lower than its previous three-quarter-point hikes, the latest move will further increase the costs of many consumer and business loans and the risk of a recession.
More surprisingly, the policymakers forecast that their key short-term rate will reach a range of 5% to 5.25% by the end of 2023. That suggests that the Fed is poised to raise its rate by an additional three-quarters of a point and leave it there through next year. Some economists had expected that the Fed would project only an additional half-point increase.
The latest rate hike was announced one day after an encouraging report showed that inflation in the United States slowed in November for a fifth straight month. The year-over-year increase of 7.1%, though still high, was sharply below a recent peak of 9.1% in June.
“The inflation data in October and November show a welcome reduction,” Powell said at his news conference. “But it will take substantially more evidence to give confidence that inflation is on a sustained downward path.”
In its updated forecasts, the Fed’s policymakers predicted slower growth and higher unemployment for next year and 2024. The unemployment rate is envisioned to jump to 4.6% by the end of 2023, from 3.7% today. That would mark a significant increase in joblessness that typically would reflect a recession.
Consistent with a sharp slowdown, the officials also projected that the economy will barely grow next year, expanding just 0.5%, less than half the forecast it had made in September.
In recent weeks, Fed officials have indicated that they see some evidence of progress in their drive to defeat the worst inflation bout in four decades and bring inflation back down to their 2% annual target. The national average for a gallon of regular gas, for example, has tumbled from $5 in June to $3.21.
Many supply chains are no longer clogged, thereby helping reduce goods prices. The better-than-expected November inflation data showed that the prices of used cars, furniture and toys all declined last month.
So did the costs of services from hotels to airfares to car rentals. Rental and home prices are falling, too, though those declines have yet to feed into the government’s data.
And one measure the Fed tracks closely — “core” prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs for a clearer snapshot of underlying inflation — rose only slightly for a second straight month.
Inflation has also eased slightly in Europe and the United Kingdom, leading analysts to expect the European Central Bank and the Bank of England to slow their pace of rate hikes at their meetings Thursday. Both are expected to raise rates by half a point to target still painfully high prices spikes after big three-quarter-point increases.
Inflation in the 19 countries using the euro currency fell to 10% from 10.6% in October, the first decline since June 2021. The rate is so far above the bank’s 2% goal that rate hikes are expected to continue into next year. Britain’s inflation also eased from a 41-year record of 11.1% in October to a still-high 10.7% in November.
Many economists think the Fed will further downshift to a quarter-point rate hike when it next meets early next year. Asked about that Wednesday, Powell said he has yet to decide how large he thinks the next hike should be. But having raised rates so fast, he said, “we think the appropriate thing to do now is to move at a slower pace. That will allow us to feel our way.”
Powell downplayed any notion that the Fed might decide to reverse course next year and start cutting rates to support growth, as Wall Street investors are expecting.
“I wouldn’t see the committee cutting rates until we’re confident that inflation is moving down in a sustained way,” he said.
Cumulatively, the Fed’s hikes have led to much costlier borrowing rates for consumers as well as companies, ranging from mortgages to auto and business loans. They have sent home sales plummeting and are starting to weigh down rents on new apartments, a leading source of high inflation.
Fed officials have said they want rates to reach “restrictive” levels that slow growth and hiring and bring inflation down to their target range. Worries have grown that the Fed is raising rates so much in its drive to curb inflation that it will trigger a recession next year.
The policymakers have stressed that more significant than how fast they raise rates is how long they keep them at or near their peak.
“It’s far more important to think what is the ultimate level,” Powell said Wednesday.
Powell’s biggest focus has been on services prices, which he has said are likely to stay persistently high. In part, that’s because sharp increases in wages are becoming a key contributor to inflation. Services companies, like hotels and restaurants, are particularly labor-intensive. And with average wages growing at
With many service-sector employers still desperate for workers, Powell said pay growth may remain above what’s consistent with the Fed’s 2% inflation target.
“We have a long way to go,” the Fed chair said, “to get to price stability.”
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AP Business Writer David McHugh contributed to the contents of this report.
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the state of his American Rescue Plan from the State Dining Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 5, 2021. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
WASHINGTON (New York Post) — A cancer charity started by Joe Biden gave out no money to research, and spent most of its contributions on staff salaries, federal filings show.
The Biden Cancer Initiative was founded in 2017 by the former vice president and his wife, Jill Biden, to “develop and drive implementation of solutions to accelerate progress in cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis, research and care and to reduce disparities in cancer outcomes,” according to its IRS mission statement. But it gave out no grants in its first two years, and spent millions on the salaries of former Washington, DC, aides it hired.
The charity took in $4,809,619 in contributions in fiscal years 2017 and 2018, and spent $3,070,301 on payroll in those two years. The group’s president, Gregory Simon, raked in $429,850 in fiscal 2018 (July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2019), according to the charity’s most recent federal tax filings.
Simon, a former Pfizer executive and longtime health care lobbyist who headed up the White House’s cancer task force in President Barack Obama’s administration, saw his salary nearly double from the $224,539 he made in fiscal 2017, tax filings show.
Danielle Carnival, former chief of staff for Obama’s cancer initiative, the Cancer Moonshot Task Force, took home $258,207 in 2018.
The charity spent $56,738 on conferences and $59,356 on travel that year. The following year, the travel expenditure swelled to $97,149, and the nonprofit spent $742,953 on conferences, tax filings show.
But under grants distributed, it listed zero.
Simon had said the main point of the charity was not to give out grants, and that its goal was to find ways to accelerate treatment for all, regardless of their economic or cultural backgrounds.
Biden headed up the Cancer Moonshot Task Force when he was veep after his son Beau died of a brain tumor in 2015. After he left office, the Biden Cancer Initiative sought to continue such efforts to provide “urgent” solutions to treating cancer, according to a 2017 press statement announcing its launch.
The Bidens stacked the board with leading oncologists and celebrity cancer survivors, including musician Jimmy Gomez from the Black Eyed Peas.
After only two years, the charity “paused” its operations when Joe Biden and his wife stepped down for his presidential run.
Although the organization is still officially active, according to the IRS, Simon said in a 2019 interview that without the Bidens at the helm, the charity lost its edge.
“We tried to power through but it became increasingly difficult to get the traction we needed to complete our mission,” he told the AP in July 2019.
Neither Simon nor Biden could be reached for comment.
The New York Post’s Isabel Vincent contributed to the contents of this report.
WASHINGTON– According to a new cost analysis by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), providing for the needs of illegal aliens who entered the country under President Biden adds an additional $20.4 billion annual burden on American taxpayers. This figure is in addition to the well over $140 billion a year cost burden taxpayers are already bearing to provide benefits and services for the longer-term illegal alien population.
The Biden administration has willingly released approximately 1.3 million illegal aliens into the country’s interior after removals and Title 42 expulsions are accounted for. Add to this figure approximately 1 million “gotaways” according to FAIR’s sources within U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and it can be safely estimated that approximately 2.3 million illegal aliens successfully entered the country’s interior after President Biden took office.
Based on the most recent comprehensive cost study, FAIR conservatively estimates that each illegal alien costs American taxpayers $9,232 per year.
“Even in an age in which trillion dollar spending packages are considered modest, the additional $20.4 billion the Biden Border Crisis has heaped onto the backs of American taxpayers is still staggering,” noted Dan Stein, president of FAIR. “$20.4 billion could address some very important needs of the American public, instead of covering the costs of the surge of illegal migration triggered by this administration’s policies.”
The $20.4 billion that taxpayers will spend this year, on just the illegal aliens who have entered the country in the last year and half, could cover the cost of:
Providing every homeless veteran in America $50,000 per year for a decade. This would effectively end veteran homelessness.
Giving every family in America earning $50k or less a grocery voucher of roughly $410.
Providing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to more than 7 million additional needy families.
Funding and expanding the entire National School Lunch Program.
Hiring more than 315,000 police officers to combat rising crime across the country.
Hiring of 330,000 new teachers, which would easily end the long-standing teacher shortage in America.
Construction of nearly the entire Southern Border Wall (which could prevent millions more illegal aliens from entering).
“According to another new report, 35 percent of U.S. families with a full-time worker struggle to meet their basic needs. These are the people President Biden pledged to champion. Instead, he is choosing to divert an additional $20.4 billion away from their needs, in order to fund a radical open borders agenda with no end in sight,” concluded Stein.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis addresses the media over the ongoing border crisis.
WASHINGTON (Breitbart)– President Donald Trump argued Monday that he should be declared the winner of the 2020 election, citing fraud and election interference by the FBI.
The former president pointed to reports that the FBI worked to bury the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop on social media right before the 2020 election.
“This is massive FRAUD & ELECTION INTERFERENCE at a level never seen before in our Country,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump said the FBI purposefully tried to stop him from winning the 2020 election.
He proposed two solutions.
“REMEDY: Declare the rightful winner or, and this would be the minimal solution, declare the 2020 Election irreparably compromised and have a new Election, immediately!” Trump wrote.
It is unclear how a presidential election would be declared fraudulent and redone through the court system, and unclear whether it is even permissible by the Constitution.
Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in an interview with podcaster Joe Rogan that the FBI warned his company of an imminent “dump” of “Russian propaganda” putting them on “high alert” right before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke in the days before the 2020 election.
Facebook censored the story as disinformation right before the 2020 election although it ultimately proved to be factual.
“Yeah. I mean, it sucks. I mean, it turned out after the fact, I mean the fact-checkers looked into it, no one was able to say it was false, right?” Zuckerberg admitted to Rogan. “So basically it had this period where it was getting less distribution.”
Breitbart’s Charlie Spiering contributed to the contents of this report.
(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on October 30, 2020 shows Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden delivers remarks on Covid-19 at The Queen theater on October 23, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware and
US President Donald Trump addresses supporters during a Make America Great Again rally as he campaigns in Gastonia, North Carolina, October 21, 2020. (Photos by Angela Weiss and SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by ANGELA WEISS,SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
WASHINGTON (New York Post) — The Florida federal magistrate judge who signed off on a search warrant authorizing the FBI raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort left the local US Attorney’s office more than a decade ago to rep employees of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein who had received immunity in the long-running sex-trafficking investigation of the financier.
Sources tell The Post that Judge Bruce Reinhart approved the warrant that enabled federal agents to converge on the palatial South Florida estate on Monday in what Trump called an “unannounced raid on my home.”
Reinhart was elevated to magistrate judge in March 2018 after 10 years in private practice. That November, the Miami Herald reported that he had represented several of Epstein’s employees — including, by Reinhart’s own admission to the outlet, Epstein’s pilots; his scheduler, Sarah Kellen; and Nadia Marcinkova, who Epstein once reportedly described as his “Yugoslavian sex slave.”
Kellen and Marcinkova were among Epstein’s lieutenants who were granted immunity as part of a controversial 2007 deal with federal prosecutors that allowed the pervert to plead guilty to state charges rather than federal crimes. Epstein wound up serving just 13 months in county jail and was granted work release.
According to the outlet, Reinhart resigned from the South Florida US Attorney’s Office effective on New Year’s Day 2008 and went to work for Epstein’s cohorts the following day. Epstein, who was found dead in August 2019 of an apparent suicide in the Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, had hired a stable of high-powered lawyers, including former independent counsel Kenneth Starr.
Reinhart was later named in a civil lawsuit that accused him of violating Justice Department policies by switching sides in the middle of the Epstein investigation, suggesting he had used inside information about the probe to build favor with the notorious defendant, the Herald reported in 2018.
In a 2011 affidavit, Reinhart denied he had done anything improper and insisted that since he was not involved in the federal investigation of Epstein, he was not privy to inside information about the case.
However, in a 2013 court filing, Reinhart’s former colleagues contradicted him, saying that he had “learned confidential, non-public information about the Epstein matter.” Reinhart noted to the Herald in response that a complaint filed against him by a lawyer for Epstein’s victims had been dismissed by the Justice Department.
In his 12 years as a federal prosecutor, according to his official biography, Reinhart “managed a docket that covered the full spectrum of federal crimes, including narcotics, violent crimes, public corruption, financial frauds, child pornography and immigration.”
Reinhart is one of three federal magistrate judges in the West Palm Beach offices of the US District Court for the Southern District Court of Florida, along with William Matthewman and Ryon McCabe.
Two recent warrant applications were assigned to Reinhart and entered into the court system on Monday, the Miami Herald reported, but those warrants and information about who they targeted remain sealed. Records show another warrant was issued by Reinhart on Friday, but its contents were also sealed.
Trump confirmed media reports of a raid at his Florida resort on Monday evening, saying Mar-a-Lago was “under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”
The agents were reportedly searching the seaside property for boxes of classified documents Trump allegedly brought to the ritzy resort after he left the White House in January 2021, which would be a violation of federal record-keeping laws.
The National Archives and Records Administration said in February that it found classified documents in 15 boxes at Mar-a-Lago and alerted the FBI.
The removal of classified documents to unauthorized locations is banned under federal law, although Trump had wide powers when he was president to declassify documents.
The raid on Mar-a-Lago comes amid the House select committee’s continuing investigation into Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol as Congress met to certify the 2020 presidential election results.
A federal grand jury is also investigating the riot and Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
WASHINGTON— House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s tour of Asia will include a visit to Taiwan, senior Taiwanese government and US officials confirmed on Monday.
The planned visit comes despite fresh warnings by the Chinese government that Pelosi’s stop will be seen as an act of aggression on the part of the United States.
“We would like to tell the US once again that China is standing by, and the Chinese People’s Liberation Army will never sit idly by. China will take resolute responses and strong countermeasures to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters during a foreign ministry briefing Monday.
“As for what measures, if she dares to go, then let’s wait and see,” Zhao added.
National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby said Monday that the Biden administration will take all necessary precautions to ensure Pelosi’s safety.
“We want to make sure that when she travels overseas, she can do so safely and securely and we’re going to make sure of that. There is no reason for the Chinese rhetoric. There is no reason for any actions to be taken. It is not uncommon for congressional leaders to travel to Taiwan,” Kirby told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on “New Day.”
“We shouldn’t be as a country – we shouldn’t be intimidated by that rhetoric or those potential actions. This is an important trip for the speaker to be on and we’re going to do whatever we can to support her.”
Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned against “playing with fire” over Taiwan in a call with Joe Biden last Thursday, highlighting Beijing’s concerns about the possible visit.
“Those who play with fire will perish by it,” China’s foreign ministry quoted Xi as telling Biden in their fifth call as leaders. “It is hoped that the U.S. will be clear-eyed about this.”
Xi warned the Biden administration should abide by the “one-China principle” and stressed that China firmly opposes Taiwanese independence and outside interference.
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