AS IT EVER WAS AND EVER SHALL BE: Slow Growth Is Ahead Unless Government Gets Out of the Way.

The U.S. growth rate held up in 2023, growing an annualized 3.3% during the fourth quarter despite dangerous crises in international affairs and weak foreign growth. But that news isn’t as good as it sounds. Government spending and the surge in national debt boosted the consumption side of U.S. gross domestic product, but business investment was muted. This portends weak growth: The Federal Reserve’s GDP projections in December called for only 1.4% growth in 2024 and 1.8% in 2025.

Whoever is inaugurated next January will face a perfect storm. The suspension of the debt limit expires Jan. 1, threatening another bad deal to avoid default and government shutdown. This year’s spending bills will likely be extended just long enough to kick the can into 2025, forcing a budget battle that only the swamp could enjoy. Tax rates will rise at the end of 2025 unless Congress and the president can agree to extend some of the expiring provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Equally daunting, progressive regulatory activism will also peak in 2025. Regulation without representation is now the rule, not the exception. President Biden’s export shutdown of liquefied natural gas will cost countless jobs, hurt global energy supplies, increase carbon emissions, and strengthen Vladimir Putin. Even if the Supreme Court reins in deference to regulatory agencies by limiting or overturning Chevron v. NRDC (1984), it will take years to untangle all the red tape.

Plus, so much of the growth we’ve had is the result of government incentives to invest in green energy boondoggles that will likely prove to be long-term drains on the productive parts of the economy.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Get the Beef-Rice Away From My Plate. “‘How is beef rice manufactured?’ I can almost hear you ask with no small amount of trepidation in your voice. Well, when a bull and a rice paddy love each other very much, and are acting within the confines of a non-traditional marriage…”

OUT SOON: From Rob Henderson, Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class. #CommissionEarned

WOEING: Airbus Pulls Further Ahead of Boeing in Global Plane Rivalry.

Airbus, the European aerospace giant, plans to deliver around 800 jets to customers this year, including the popular single-aisle A320neo, its main competitor to the 737 Max. It delivered 735 planes last year, more than it had originally targeted. This year’s push is intended to meet what Guillaume Faury, the plane maker’s chief executive, said was a sharp recovery in demand for air travel after pandemic lockdowns.

Airbus pulled in a record 2,094 commercial aircraft orders last year, partly on a surge in demand for narrow-body and midsize jets from India and other rapidly growing countries. That added to the company’s extensive backlog of 8,598 commercial aircraft at the end of 2023.

By contrast, Boeing delivered 528 commercial airplanes and recorded 1,576 net orders.

Ouch.

EVERY INSTITUTION HAS BEEN CORRUPTED: ‘Total disgrace:’ LGBTQ nursing course called out for prioritizing activism over healthcare.

ALL THAT THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH AND THEN SOME: Colorado Dems Want to Ban HOW MANY Guns? “When the headline asked ‘How many guns?’ the answer is, ‘Nobody quite knows.'”

DO THE LETTERS “F.O.” MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU? Harvard pro-Palestine group posts bizarre ‘dear Zionists’ Valentine’s message.

I’M NOT EXACTLY SHOCKED BY ANY OF THIS: Hardly any plastics can be truly recycled, and producers have known for decades. “Moreover, while some local and city recycling programs collect other categories of plastics, they do not fully recycle them. Those other plastics are burned or deposited in landfills, instead. In many cases, chemical additives or coloring make it impossible to recycle the same types of plastic together, while even plastic products that can be legitimately repurposed degrade in quality over time, and the cost of the process is more than that of producing entirely new plastic.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Election Year Surprise — Radio Soros Is Going to Commie Up the Airwaves “A lesson we all learned back in Satan’s Year 2020 was to never, ever ask, ‘What else could possibly go wrong?’ The universe just sits around waiting for some idiot to say that out loud so that it can reach into its bottomless bag of answers for the question.”

I DID NOT SEE THIS ONE COMING: Iran declares Antarctica their ‘property rights’ in direct challenge to Biden, global treaty.

BUT OF COURSE: Biden Admin Wants More Black Veterans Declared Mentally Disabled In The Name Of ‘Equity.’

WHERE DO OUR MEMORIES GO? You can’t physically measure your memories but you know you have them from way back, so where does your body store them? Or are they even in your body when you access them? Scientist Phillip Cunningham has some challenging thoughts on this and related questions on HillFaith this morning.

AT AMAZON, Shop the President’s Day Sale. #CommissionEarned

BAD FREQUENCY: Is America Ready for George Soros Radio Station Domination?

WE WERE FED A FARRAGO OF LIES: Matt Taibbi: WMD, Part II: CIA “Cooked The Intelligence” To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016 “Russia didn’t fear Hillary Clinton. ‘It was a relationship they were comfortable with,’ some CIA analysts believed, but intelligence was suppressed. On the fall of the last great Russiagate myth.”

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Retail sales tumbled 0.8% in January, much more than expected. “Federal Reserve officials have said they are satisfied enough with the prospects for both inflation falling and growth holding steady that the rate-hiking cycle begun in March 2022 is likely over. But they are watching the data closely, with most saying that they will need more evidence that inflation is on a sustainable path back to the central bank’s 2% goal before starting to cut.”

FLASHBACK: The Wheels Are Coming Off The Biden Administration.

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: Five Dirty, Career-Ending, Prison-Warranting Secrets Biden Wants You to Forget Before Election Day. “As of today, we are supposed to believe that Joe Biden plans on running for re-election, hoping to assail our battered nation with another term of Marxist codswallop. I’ll bet my Snagglepuss lunchbox that doesn’t happen. I think Biden is going to exit, stage left. And with good reason.”

CONSEQUENCES ARE FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Biden Staffer Who Mishandled China, Iran Secrets Retains High-Security Pentagon Job.

BETTER THIS THAN DATING APPS:  Young singles are signing up for running clubs to find dates.

THESE AREN’T JUST THE CRAZY YEARS, THEY’RE ALSO THE STUPID YEARS: Don Surber: NYC may ban Tide pods.

THE JUNTA IS THE ENEMY OF HUMANITY:  Report: Biden Admin Set to Reward Palestinians For October 7 Massacre With a State and East Jerusalem as Capital.

YEAH, THAT:  Political pilgrimage revisited.

MATT TAIBBI: U.S. Government Is Hiding Documents That Incriminate Intelligence Community For Illegal Spying And Election Interference, Say Sources: Former CIA Director Gina Haspel blocked the release of “binder” with evidence that may identify her role in the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.