As the supply chain crisis continues in the United States, one Republican congressman’s car dealership is serving as an important anecdotal example of just how bad things are.
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a conservative economic group, revealed photos of Texas Republican Rep. Roger Williams’ auto dealership in Weatherford, Texas, before and after the current crisis.
In the first photo from July 2019, under the Trump administration, the Williams Chrysler Dodge Jeep dealership can be seen full of automobiles ready for sale.
The report from the committee then contrasts the image with one from recent days, which shows a seemingly empty lot.
Williams told the group that he normally has 500 to 1,000 cars and trucks on its lots but said that they now have only 14 for sale.
He also suggested that because of the supply chain woes, along with the computer chip shortage, people are not able to get good deals on automobiles.
“We don’t sell anything below sticker price today,” he told the committee, which was co-founded by economists Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore, who served as an adviser to former President Donald Trump.
According to Cars.com, there are actually 81 vehicles for sale at the dealership as of Thursday.
The dealership’s website says there is a combined total of 111 new and used cars for sale at the Weatherford location.
The Western Journal is awaiting comment from the dealership in order to get an exact number, which would still be significantly below the 500-1,000 figure that Williams considers normal.
This report is only one example of the issues happening across the United States and around the world that are deeply hurting the consumer economy.
Stores throughout the country are running low on merchandise, largely because of the cargo ship backlog in the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
Inflation was already driving prices higher, but the low supply will cause prices to surge even higher, making for a tough holiday season for millions of Americans.
There are concerns that President Joe Biden’s agenda, including a coronavirus vaccine mandate for federal contractors and his spending plan, will only make the situation worse, according to CNN.
Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes said Tuesday on a conference call that the mandate will make matters worse for his company, which is responsible for manufacturing tools for both the private and defense sector.
“We certainly expect that there will be some disruption in both the supply chain and with our customers as a result of this,” he said. “But we’re going to work our way through it.”
Most of the economic problems we're facing (inflation, supply chains, etc.) are high class problems. We wouldn't have had them if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent. We would instead have had a much worse problem.
— Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) October 14, 2021
While liberal economists and the Biden administration would like to dismiss the economic concerns of Americans, this is undoubtedly impacting everything from grocers to car dealerships and yes, even the military-industrial complex.