OPINION: Bad Biden Economics. $5 + 8.6% = 217 + 49. That is the current political math for Democrats and the Biden Administration when it comes to the U.S. economy. If a regular gallon of gas is $5 or higher and inflation continues at its 8.6% rate, the Democrats will most likely lose control of the House and Senate for 2023 and 2024. Economists point to a broad range of issues that are causing inflation that are affecting the everyday pocketbook of Americans the President can not control. But the Biden Administration and President Joe Biden himself deservedly shoulder blame as well. They were admittedly too slow to react to the financial headwinds that they were warned about last year. And the largesse of money (and printing more of it) to help Americans during the pandemic undoubtedly played a role. Under his control or not, the economy, gas prices and inflation are the defining issues that President Biden must contend with if he wants to have a Congress controlled by his party. North-JerseyNews.com
Federal Reserve officials are beginning to signal higher unemployment rates might be a necessary consequence of their efforts to damp inflation by raising interest rates. The unemployment rate, at 3.6% last month, has nearly returned to the half-century lows of 3.5% that it touched before the pandemic struck the U.S. economy in March 2020. Fed officials have sketched out a path in which unemployment rises this year, though not sharply, as the economy and inflation cool, a scenario Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has referred to as a “soft or ‘soft-ish’ landing.” The Wall Street Journal
A survey by the New Jersey Society of CPAs found that 65% of their members said the New Jersey economy would get worse through the end of 2022, while 68% thought the same for the overall economy. With central bankers raising interest rates to make borrowing money more expensive in hopes to cool off consumer and business demand that gives supply a chance to catch up and sets the stage for more moderate inflation, 73% of respondents to NJCPA reported inflation was the biggest challenge businesses are facing. North-JerseyNews.com
The Jan. 6 House Select Committee committee plans to call Bill Stepien, the final chairman of Donald Trump’s campaign, who is expected to detail what the campaign and the former president himself knew about his fictitious claims of widespread election fraud. Stepien, a close ally of Chris Christie when he was New Jersey governor, is appearing under subpoena as the committee plans to use the testimony to lay out evidence that Trump knowingly spread the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him in an attempt to overturn his defeat. The New York Times
U.S. Senate negotiators said they reached a bipartisan framework on measures intended to limit some access to firearms, paving the way for the broadest federal legislation on guns in decades, a proposal narrower than what President Joe Biden and many Democrats had sought. The bipartisan bill funds mental-health programs and school security; closes the “boyfriend loophole” by prohibiting people from obtaining a firearm if they were convicted of domestic violence relating to a dating partner or were the subject of a restraining order; provide incentives for states to implement and maintain red-flag laws; and includes juvenile records in background checks for people buying guns who are under 21 years of age. The Wall Street Journal
North Jersey members voted for the House’s gun control bill called Protecting Our Kids Act before the U.S. Senate deal was announced. The legislation passed by the House includes raising the age to buy a semiautomatic rifle from 18 to 21; creates new crimes for gun trafficking and straw purchasers; authorize seizure of illegally sold firearms; gives the ATF tools to capture more untraceable “ghost guns;” establishes safe storage rules; closes the bump stock loophole and bans large bullet capacity. “It’s time my colleagues across the aisle, who routinely profess to be deeply concerned about the lives lost to gun violence, begin passing the legislation that would save them,” said Rep. Mikie Sherrill. North-JerseyNews.com
Gov. Phil Murphy made an appeal to seven companies in Georgia to relocate their businesses to protect female employees from the “dangerous potential new reality” that the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn Roe v. Wade. The letters cited New Jersey’s 2022 law that codifies the right to abortion and warned executives that reversing a woman’s right to choose “threatens the safety and quality of life” for women in Georgia and other states that seek to restrict access to the procedure. “The overturning of a woman’s right to bodily autonomy — and the chilling effect this decision will have on your ability to attract and retain top female talent by being located in a state which has refused to recognize women’s reproductive freedom — cannot be ignored,” he wrote in one letter dated May 25. Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Two key members of Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration were dropped from a whistleblower lawsuit filed by a former state Health Department official who alleged that the governor’s office ordered a criminal investigation of him after his firing. Superior Court Judge Douglas H. Hurd removed George Helmy, Murphy’s chief of staff, and acting attorney general Matt Platkin, as defendants in the case. Platkin was the governor’s chief counsel at the time of Christopher Neuwirth’s termination as an assistant health commissioner. But Judge Hurd did order the Murphy Administration to to provide some details about who sought the probe from the attorney general’s Office of Public Integrity and Accountability. New Jersey Globe
The Food and Drug Administration said three doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine appeared to be effective in preventing COVID illness in children under 5, judging by the level of virus-blocking antibodies the shots induced. The agency’s evaluation was posted online ahead of Wednesday’s meeting of outside vaccine experts, summoned to recommend how the F.D.A. should rule on applications from both Pfizer and Moderna on vaccinating the nation’s youngest children. The New York Times
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lifted the requirement of passing a COVID-19 test to get back into the U.S. The rule, put in place at the height of the pandemic, required travelers to get tested within 72 hours before flying back from an international trip. News12 New Jersey
New Jersey on June 12 reported one new COVID-19 death and 1,918 new confirmed cases. There were 783 patients with confirmed or suspected coronavirus cases in the 70 of 71 state hospitals that reported. Of those hospitalized, 84 were in intensive care and 34 were on ventilators. New Jersey’s statewide transmission rate was 0.89 with the positivity rate at 9.7% for tests conducted on June 8. NJ.com
New Jersey adult recreational weed sales will begin at three Central Jersey stores this week. AYR Wellness stores in Eatontown, Woodbridge and Union that currently sell medical marijuana will launch legal weed sales on June 15. The three stores means a total of 16 stores will be selling adult weed in New Jersey come Wednesday. NJ.com
A decision by the Hoboken Planning Board meeting over a recreational cannabis application was delayed until at least August. The application from Story Dispensary to open a recreational dispensary at the site of the former Hudson Tavern in northeast Hoboken has been met with resistance by residents in the neighborhood as well as the condo owners living above the former tavern who have sued to stop them, alleging they were misled in the creation of it. Hudson Reporter
New York City’s proposed congestion pricing program to charge a toll for people driving south of 60th Street in Manhattan is being delayed as it must answer questions from the federal government. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the federal government has come back with more than 400 questions about the congestion pricing proposal, which has delayed progress on the plan from where officials had hoped to be this Summer. Officials had planned for a 2023 roll out of the plan. NJ.com
Liberty State Park would remain under complete state control while taking in more public input for planning under the Liberty State Park Conservation, Recreation and Community Inclusion Act, introduced by State Sens. Brian Stack (D-33), Nicholas Sacco (D-32), and Sandra Cunningham (D-31). The act would develop the Liberty State Design Park Task Force within the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) to field public input on the park while developing and appropriating funds to support park planning and improvements. But some, led by Assemblyman Raj Mukherji (D-33), said they can not support the bill unless it provided sufficient safeguards against privatization. North-JerseyNews.com
Assemblywoman Annette Chaparro (D-33) said the newly-drawn 32nd district must have Latino representation. “If for some reason I do not run, I am committed to ensuring that Latina representation remains in Trenton coming from our district. Hispanics and Latinos make up 40% of Hudson County’s population,” Chaparro stated. “I intend to ensure that representation of this community remains in Trenton—whether it’s me or someone else.” It’s not clear if the Hoboken seat will go to Chaparro or to a pick by the two-term mayor, Ravi Bhalla. Assemblyman Raj Mukherji, the State Senate candidate of the party, said last week that he was meeting with with prospective running mates but did not indicate if Chaparro was on the list to be interviewed. New Jersey Globe
New Jersey remains in the running to be one of the first early presidential primary states in 2024. New Jersey has been invited to make a formal presentation to the Democratic National Committee rules and bylaws committee of its proposal to move the state’s primary election to February from June. The DNC is considering 13 other states and one U.S. Territory as early primary states. NJ1015.com
A Superior Court Judge has dismissed a lawsuit Hudson County Executive Tom DeGise filed against a group of activists and voided a restraining order that had severely restricted when the group could protest outside DeGise’s home. The order, issued in December 2020, limited protests to a single hour every two weeks, barred more than 10 people from demonstrating, and restricted where such demonstrations could be held. Protesters gathered outside DeGise’s home and the homes of some county commissioners to protest since-abandoned contracts Hudson had with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to house immigrant detainees in the county’s jail. New Jersey Monitor
Sussex County Technical School’s decision to cut its E-Commerce curriculum at the end of this month has upset students who started a petition to urge administrators to change their minds. The students in the E-Commerce “shop,” one of the school’s Career and Technical Education programs. learned of the decision in a letter sent to parents. The program is being cut “due to low enrollment and lack of student interest,” stated the letter. New Jersey Herald
Eight Paterson schools are getting laundry rooms for their students, part of a plan to improve attendance by giving youngsters a place where they can wash dirty school uniforms. Five schools — Alonzo “Tambua” Moody Academy, S.T.A.R.S. Academy, Eastside High School and P.S. No. 12 and No. 21 — have received washers and dryers and staff are in the process of installing them. Harp Academy, International High School and the New Roberto Clemente School are slated to get the laundry appliances soon, with each participating school getting up to two washers and dryers. The Record
And finally…A full strawberry supermoon will glow in the June sky this week along with a rare ‘planet parade.’ NJ.com
