Today there has been plenty of primary election coverage, especially concerning who will the Republicans nominate and how soon will that lead to disaster. Every single pundit mentioned that by November the General Election will more or less boil down to:
Election Denialism vs. Run Away Inflation
(Which might be true but some candidates have lots of baggage that may supersede the bigger picture issues?)
But I am very tired of hearing that inflation is solely the fault of Democrats!! Putting aside the huge help that Russia/Ukraine provided toward global inflation, I am wondering what the total cost of January Sixth might add up to, and if that might also contribute to inflation.
It might pale compared to the stimulus checks but there must be significant costs to multiple Departments of the Federal Government and to several states. I will list a few that occurred to me, but I am sure I am missing some (perhaps obvious ones?).
- First, there was a great deal of repair and replace at the Capitol. Doors, windows, and other fixtures needed replacement.
- Then there was furniture and other contents. Some of that stuff might have been quite valuable.
- There was fencing and heightened security not just at the Capitol but at all Federal buildings.
- Several members of Congress required personal security and continue to have personal bodyguards, even some staff members of Congress members need extra security.
- The Inauguration must have been more expensive than originally planned.
- The FBI and the Department of Justice have spent several fortunes on investigating and prosecuting insurrectionists.
- In addition they are needing to recruit and train agents and other staff as a result of Trump.
- Meals had to be provided to every one arrested in connection with the insurrection.
- Even court costs and subpoenas and all the auxiliary people required for that perhaps??
Then there were less direct costs associated with trying to steal the election:
- Like all the sorting machines (some very new as I recall) D’Joy threw out of the USPS to delay mail-in ballots.
- The endless counts, recounts, audits, hand recounts, and investigations performed by every level of government several times over with no change in results.
- The costs of the many court cases in many states and at the Federal level which all amounted to jack squat, they had to cost something.
- Investigators on planes interviewing witnesses or suspects.
- Computers purchased specifically to store and retrieve evidence.
I might be grasping at straws on some of those, but money was spent for everything listed above and it would not have been spent except for Trump and his henchmen trying to steal the election. There is no reason those costs should have to come out of existing budgets; every paperclip the Select Committee uses is an unnecessary cost created by a coup attempt.
I would like to find a significant amount of expenditure of Government funds that came as a result of Trump’s many coup attempts. That way when Republicans talk about inflation, Democrats can say something like: "Yes, inflation is bad right now but we are working to bring it under control after all the money we had to spend restoring the Capitol Building and cleaning feces off of priceless historical objects. I hope you will join us in working to put an end to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine which caused a great deal of the inflation - - and avoid any coup attempts which cost the government X amount of dollars that was obviously NOT in the budget.
Can some here help estimate those added costs, and state if those costs would be significant enough to contribute to our current inflation? (Now that I think about it, trump sent out the first series of stimulus checks. That amount needs to go on the other side of the ledger too.) The republicans keep saying that government spending is what brought on inflation – how much of that can be attributed to the right?
