COLA Increase is a Joke!

 COLA Increase Does Not Take the Fizz Out of Inflation 

 By James Terminiello 

 

Come January, I and my fellow ancients will enjoy the bounty of a 3.2% Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) in our Social Security disbursements. This is on the heels of a lusty 8.7% COLA for 2022. So, inflation appears to be in eclipse. 

 

Uh..... No! 

 

Even as the size of everything – orange juice containers, boxes of cookies, cuts of meat, rolls of toilet paper, portions at restaurants – shrinks to cover up price increases, the blade of inflation continues to slice deeply.  We are in a permanently inflated economy and no COLA-flavored ointment will heal the wound.  

 

Why is this so?  

 

The rampaging drunken sailor that is the Biden Administration has been on a money-spewing spree since Old Squint took office. 

 

Here’s a short list. 

 

Build Back Better – Spend. Spend. Spend.  

Bug out of Afghanistan Fast! – Oops! We left billions in ordinance behind. OK, we’ll just buy some more! 

Stop Drilling for Oil Here – Instant jump in gas prices (you may have noticed) That means that everything delivered to your store or home has gotten more expensive. I repeat everything. 

Promote Electric Vehicles – The Feds don’t offer grants for buying EVs, but they do have a subsidy that reduces the cost as well as rebates. Kind of the same thing. Meanwhile poor folk with gas powered cars pay higher prices at the pump every single day. 

Carte Blanche for Ukraine – There is finally some blow-back for giving Ukraine un-accounted-for millions with no watchdog. Sorry, but Old Squint and his son have had questionable dealings with fabulously corrupt Ukraine for years and I don’t believe in coincidences.   

Gazillions for Gaza – It does appear probable that the money released to Iran by the Biden Administration helped to fund the massive Hamas raid that produced the latest war for Israel. And you know who is going to pay to fill in the bomb craters after the killing is over.  

Green Initiatives – This is code for more regulations which means higher costs which are passed on to … guess who?  

Eliminating College Debt – Nice idea but those same college students will be paying for this relief by the higher costs and inevitable higher taxes needed to pay for this and all of the above. 

Interest Rate Increases – It seems that the Fed has one and only one way of cooling down the economy. Let’s make it onerous to buy a property, get a loan, or start a business. So many brilliant minds there and this is all they can come up with? 

The Leaking Border – Let us not forget the cost of feeding clothing, housing, transporting, medicating, educating, policing, incarcerating, and burying the 3 million + illegal aliens that Old Squint has allowed in during his brief, but invigorating, time as our quasi-leader. The starry-eyed among us call them migrants. Why quibble? Call them what you will, (snow angels?) the cost to you and me will still be the same, and it is mounting as you read this.

 

I could go on, but you can see that the words “financial restraint” cannot be found in the Biden Administration's limited vocabulary.  Is appears that anyone who even suggests a modest budget reduction is banished to a Democrat Reeducation Camp never to return.

 

While I am no fan of the cowardly conduct of the Republican opposition in the fight for fiscal sanity, may I respectfully offer a simple Republican marketing slogan for the 2024 elections: 

 

BIDEN EQUALS INFLATION 

 

Simple. Succinct. And impossible to refute.  

  

James Terminiello, author of the political satire Junkyard, writes from Mount Laurel, New Jersey. 

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