John Block Reports from Washington

Hello everybody out there in farm country. This radio commentary is brought to you by the National Corn Growers Association, CropLife America, and Renewable Fuels Association. They are all friends, supporters, and allies of a healthy farm economy and prosperous rural America. Thank you.

And now for today’s commentary –

When you hear this radio commentary, we will have a new President. Joe Biden will face a long and difficult list of challenges. Topping the list will be the Coronavirus and a $1.9 trillion stimulus to lift our economy. That huge spending bill has not passed the Congress yet. Probably will be changed some. The primary objective is to help low-income people. It includes an extension of a 15% increase in food stamps we approved in December and a $600 check per adult. Biden’s plan would hand out another $1400 payment. According to the Wall Street Journal this spending would cut the poverty rate from 12.6% to 9%. The number of children in poverty would drop by half. If we get control of the virus with the vaccine as expected, our economy would be ready to take off.

Goldman Sachs forecasts our economy to grow 6.6% this year. Unemployment could drop to
4.8%. That is a very exciting forecast. But don’t assume that it will be free. We will have to
borrow that $1.9 trillion. U.S. government debt has already exploded by $7 trillion in the last 4
years to $21.6 trillion. One good thing that may not always be the case is that interest rates are
really low. It doesn’t cost so much to borrow money if interest is less than 2% but it might not
stay that low. I remember in the early 1980s we paid 16% or 18%. That was terrible.
Thousands of farms and businesses went broke. As much as we need to be concerned about our
level of debt, we need to fight our way through this global pandemic recession. Here is where
the U.S. stands relative to other nations. Last year our gross domestic product fell by 4.3%. Our
economy should be growing by that much. But compared to other countries we didn’t do so bad.
Japan, Brazil, Germany, Canada, France and U.K. – they all did worse than the U.S. – S. Korea
was down only 2%. China wasn’t down at all. Their economy grew by 2.3%. There is a pretty
broad agreement that we need another stimulus package, but how big should it be? How much
can we afford? That’s the question.

John Block reporting from Washington, D.C. If you would like to review my radio shows going back more than 20 years, just go on-line to www.johnblockreports.com.