With Inflation, the Murder Rate, and Border Crossings all Declining, The GOP May Need a New Issue

Republican presidential candidates have all been attacking President Joe Biden on inflation, immigration, and crime, but by the time they debate in the Fall, they might have to find some new issues to campaign on. Murders, inflation, and border crossings are all declining.

Murder Rate: A new study by Jeff Asher of AH Analytics found that the murder rate has fallen by 12.2% in the 90 cities that have released data for 2023, compared with data for the same five months in 2022. And that comes after a 4% drop in the murder rate last year.

Asher: "And this spring, I’ve found something that I’ve never seen before and that probably has not happened in decades: strong evidence of a sharp and broad decline in the nation’s murder rate." ..... "The United States may be experiencing one of the largest annual percent changes in murder ever recorded, according to my preliminary data."

Inflation: The inflation rate for May fell to 4%, less than half of the June 2022 peak. During 2022, the inflation rate started at 7.5%, peaked last June at 9.1% but then declined steadily over the past 12 months.

Moreover, the latest inflation figures arrived just after the Labor Department reported that the economy added 339,000 jobs in May, showing that the labor market remains incredibly strong despite efforts by the administration to cool down the economy. And, wages were up 4.3% year-over-year in May.

Forbes: "David Bahnsen, chief investment officer at The Bahnsen Group, says Tuesday’s CPI report is a clear sign the Fed has won its battle against inflation.

“Tuesday’s CPI suggests that inflation has been defeated,” Bahnsen says. “:Most of the inflation we are seeing is coming from housing, but it takes time for home price declines to show up in the CPI data, so today’s 4% inflation rate is actually much closer to the 2% Fed target.”

Border Crossings: Unlawful entries dropped by 70% in the last few weeks, according to the Department of Homeland Security, after the Biden administration implemented new border management policies. Republicans assumed [hoped?] that the end of Title 42 would prompt a surge of migrants. The opposite seems to have occurred.

Los Angeles Times: "Fewer migrants are crossing the southern border of the U.S., and the doomsday scenarios that many politicians feared would follow the expiration of the pandemic-era restrictions known as Title 42 have not materialized."

The election is still more than a year away, but if these trends hold up all three of these issues may favor Biden's reelection leaving Republicans to complain about the President's age, Hunter's exploits, and transexuals playing high school softball.

By: Don Lam & Curated Content

#politics