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Tina's Friday Wrap Up

18 Feb 2022 3:31 PM | Douglass MacKenzie



Hello Democrats! 


Have You Heard About Peter Thiel? - Even though Donald Trump is out of office, his venomous brand of far-right politics is alive and well in Washington State. He’s already released endorsements for multiple 2022 candidates including gun-toting gubernatorial also-ran Loren Culp and worst-of-the-worst 3rd CD candidate Joe Kent. What do these two have in common? They’re both mounting primary challenges to Republican incumbents who voted for Trump’s impeachment in 2020, Dan Newhouse and Jaime Herrera Beutler.


Even more troubling than the endorsements themselves is the support that comes with them. Following Trump’s endorsement, billionaire far-right bankroller Peter Thiel put massive amounts of money behind both candidates.


Thiel’s support for WA State candidates is just one piece of the puzzle. He’s given more than $20M to extreme conservatives running in the 2022 midterms. Most notably two of his donations, at $10M each, share the record for largest gift ever reported to a single-candidate PAC (JD Vance and Blake Masters - both hyper-conservative Senate candidates). 


Check out this piece from the New York Times for more background on Thiel - This statement is particularly chilling:


In one 2009 piece, Mr. Thiel, who called himself a libertarian, wrote that he had come to “no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible,” arguing that American politics would always be hostile to free-market ideals, and that politics was about interfering with other people’s lives without their consent. Since then, he has hosted and attended events with white nationalists and alt-right figures.


This is what we are up against, people. It’s no longer policy disagreements that separate us from the Republicans – it’s the belief (in our case) or rejection (in their case) that Democracy is worth upholding.


If we don’t fight back against Republicans with everything we’ve got, we could literally lose the ability to vote them out of office, and lose our democracy forever.


What are you doing to register, identify and engage voters right now?


Legislative Budget Updates - Last week I wrote to you about the Democratic transportation proposal in our state legislature to make major investments in our transportation and transit systems across the state. That “Move Ahead Washington” package will provide historic funding for preserving our infrastructure, combating climate change by reducing emissions, expanding safe, affordable transit options, and addressing harm inflicted on communities of color from our existing transportation system - all without adding a penny in gas tax.


Move Ahead Washington also includes significant funding to address the negative environmental, health, and economic impacts of past transportation policies. The package includes tribal and special needs transit grants, workforce development initiatives, and walking and biking projects for neighborhoods that have historically been excluded from these investments.


An update this week - one of the key pieces of legislation for Move Ahead Washington passed the Senate floor (SB 5974) on a 29-20 vote. Turncoat “Democrat” Sen. Tim Sheldon, who caucuses with the Republicans, joined with Democrats on the vote. It’s great to see this package of investments in transportation, jobs, and environmental protection moving forward!



On the operating budget side, we expect to see the release of the Democratic budget proposal next Monday, February 21st. We’ll pass along information on the budget proposal to you all once we have it, but I’m hopeful for a strong, bold proposal that will make investments in a lot of the needs that have been exposed by the pandemic - safer schools and child care, more support for students and teachers, public health, and social services to reduce homelessness and help build more housing. 

Economic News - The good news for the American economy continues! This week, we learned that retail sales increased by 3.8% in January, exceeding expectations. This strong, inflation-adjusted increase reflects the resilience of the economy even in the face of the lingering pandemic.

This data builds on the historic economic progress we’ve seen over the last year and an extremely strong jobs report last month despite omicron, which was well above expectations. In 2021, the economy created 6.7 million jobs – the strongest year of job growth on record. The unemployment rate declined more than any year on record and we achieved a 4% unemployment rate years earlier than previously projected, thanks to the American Rescue Plan. Small business applications and inflation-adjusted household income are both up.

Democrats need to tell this story to voters! We know that there’s still more to be done to create an economy that works for all Washingtonians, but we can’t let the only news people hear be Fox News. In poll after poll, voters say that the economy is one of their top concerns in 2022. We can’t be silent, or let Republicans control the conversation by talking about inflation. 


We need to tell the story about how Democratic leadership has brought back jobs and small businesses - how the American Rescue Plan (bitterly opposed by Congressional Republicans!) helped get our economy back on its feet and created historic numbers of new jobs. 


When folks talk about inflation, we need to make the root cause clear - corporations are taking advantage of our economic recovery to jack their prices up as high as they can. They know that more people are working and making money and they want to make as much profit as they can, while they can. Yeah, gas prices are high - that’s not because of Joe Biden, that’s because Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell & BP made nearly $25 billion in profits last quarter.


Don’t take it from me - take it from the people who run the grocery store business:


You might not be excited about paying higher prices for meat and vegetables, but your grocery store is thrilled.


The rising prices for staples like milk and pork affect grocery stores too, as they have to pay more to their suppliers. But while they are raising prices under the guise of increasing supplier costs, they're adding a little extra on top of that.


When grocery stores' costs rise, stores will "mark up the full rate of inflation plus a little bit more," said Burt Flickinger, the managing director of retail consultancy Strategic Resource Group. For example, if the price of meat that a store pays to its suppliers goes up 6 cents a pound, the store might raise the price it charges for that same meat by 10 cents.


Stores are betting most customers won't balk at price increases because they need to buy groceries, after all, and will still consider shopping a bargain compared to eating out at restaurants. Prices for food at restaurants are growing faster than prices at grocery stores, according to Labor Department data, giving grocers more flexibility to charge you extra.



Leading grocery chains such as Kroger and Albertsons have said in recent days that they expect to benefit from rising prices. Sales boomed at these chains and other grocers during the early stages of the pandemic, but have slowed down in recent months as more people return to eating meals out.


"Our business operates the best when inflation is about 3% to 4%," Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said on an earnings call with analysts Thursday. "A little bit of inflation is always good in our business."


Kroger can pass off costs to consumers when inflation hovers around that mark, McMullen said, and "customers don't overly react to that."


"Businesses like ours have done well when in periods where the inflation was 3% to 4%," Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said at an investor conference Tuesday.

Sankaran did not specify why inflation would help Albertsons, but his "sense is this inflation will just be passed through" to customers. Albertsons did not respond to a request for further comment.


We’ve got to be clear about what’s happening in America - President Biden and Congressional Democrats have taken great action to get folks back to work and our economy back on track. Greedy corporations are taking advantage of this positive momentum to boost their own profits by jacking up prices as high as they can. Democrats don’t need to stop and give up - we need to do more, to restrain corporate power and center the needs of workers and their families. That’s the story that we need to tell about our economy to win in 2022. 


Mask Mandates - This week, Gov. Inslee announced that the statewide mask mandate will expire on March 21st. While masks will still be required in some settings and in private businesses that choose to, and local governments will still have the option to have mandates in place, this is new development as we recover from the Omicron wave of the pandemic! 



I want to thank all the Washingtonians who have done their part to get the pandemic moving in the right direction - everyone who’s gotten vaccinated, the essential workers who’ve kept society moving, the healthcare workers who’ve taken care of us, and the scientists who discovered these incredible vaccines! I especially want to thank Gov. Jay Inslee for his strong leadership that’s made sure Washington has had the best response to COVID of any state in the country! Let’s all continue to be safe, but I feel good about where we’re headed!


Thanks for reading, and thanks for all your support and help towards winning this year. 


With gratitude, 


Tina Podlodowski


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