Blame the Biden-Harris Wave of Inflation, Not Striking Longshoremen, for Labor’s Predicament

Blame Bidenflation, not the longshoremen. No one likes disruptive strikes. People should be blaming President Biden’s inflation, though, rather than the dockworkers, for the port strike that now appears to be on hold until January.Congressman Jack Kemp taught me this more than 40 years ago. Labor strikes were breaking out all over the country in the 1970s.Business always blamed labor for asking for too much. Yet Kemp correctly argued that bad money, high taxes, and 15 percent to 20 percent inflation were the real cause of labor’s revolt.The same lesson should apply today. Twenty percent inflation over the past three-and-a-half years has brought down real wages for working folks all around the country, and that includes the longshoremen who have just gone on strike on the East Coast.Breitbart’s John Carney has calculated that the maximum $39 wage for dockworkers is now worth only $30.70 in 2018 dollars, when the last contract was negotiated.The starting wage is the equivalent of $15.75. Real wages have dropped sharply as the cost of living has sky-rocketed.I know it’s fashionable for all the business lobbies and even some conservative editorial pages to beat up on the International Longshoremen’s Association, but they should be aiming their fire at the Biden-Harris inflation policies, not the employees. Let’s not forget that Vice President Harris was a deciding vote for the two biggest inflation policies: the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan” and the $1.2 trillion misnamed “Inflation Reduction Act.”Plus they layered on $2 trillion of new regulations that caused higher inflation. And their war on fossil fuels has doubled energy prices, and that too has had a huge inflationary impact.The longshoremen are asking for compensation for Biden-Harris inflation. They’d also like some insurance against future inflation.Longshoremen are asking for $5 an hour increase, in each year of the six year deal.If you think that’s too much, as the 77 percent rise of the contract suggests, then you should give the workers some assurances that we’re not going to spend another $6 or $7 trillion on unnecessary domestic programs, that we’re going to open up the fossil fuel spigots, that were going to roll back cumbersome regulations and that will cut taxes instead of raise them.That is exactly the economic platform that President Trump is running on.Ms. Harris is running a completely different platform.Already, she has advocated $2 trillion in extra spending, with massive tax hikes, price controls, rent controls, and a continued war on fossil fuels.So if you’re a longshoreman and you’re negotiating right now, who and what do you trust over the next six years?They’re trying to protect themselves against the worst-case scenario. The moral of this story, the American workforce deserves a solid hike in wages. From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.

Blame the Biden-Harris Wave of Inflation, Not Striking Longshoremen, for Labor’s Predicament

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