Old Joe Biden has been in office for about 4.5 months. That's approaching 10% of his term. The Democrats have control of Congress, although that control is by a narrow margin. So what has Biden and his party accomplished and what is likely to come next?
Clearly, Biden's biggest achievement was passing a massive spending bill in the guise of COVID recovery. Some of the spending was indeed directed at COVID. Americans got stimulus checks from the federal government and that will and has boosted the economy. The unemployed got extended increased payments each week due to COVID caused unemployment. Of course, that led to a worker shortage as people found it more profitable to stay at home and get about the same from unemployment benefits as they got from working. Indeed, a large number of states led by Republicans governors have now ended the increased unemployment benefits. The result has been astounding. The unemployment rate in states with Republican governors is more than a full 2 percentage points less than the rate in Democrat led states. In many places, that is due to states opening back up more quickly under Republican governors than under Democrats. A good comparison is New York and Florida which have comparable populations. The unemployment in NY is among the highest in the nation. In Florida, it is much, much lower. But let's get back to the supposed COVID relief bill. Biden and the Dems sent hundreds of billions to states to bail them out from reckless spending. Of course, the states that needed help were all large Democrat led states that spent huge amounts and then spent more. Republican led states like Texas didn't need the help. The Dems even banned states from lowering taxes due to the federal largesse. They couldn't have more people flee from NY or CA or IL to the lower taxes of states like FL or TX. The COVID bill also gave a major gift to the teachers' unions who worked so diligently to keep the kids from getting the in-person education that they need.
But what else has Biden accomplished? American foreign policy is in shambles. Biden has made overtures to Iran and gotten the Ayatollah's raised middle finger in response. Biden rejoined the Paris accords as if that meaningless agreement will make any change with regard to the climate. He's also watched while the crime rate across America has soared. Murder is up over 60% this year compared to last year. Most of that increase is in the big Democrat led cities. So far, Biden has done nothing to try to stop the increase. All we have heard is the usual Democrat mantra about the need for gun control. They have yet to address how keeping guns out of the hands of normal citizens will stop well armed criminals from committing murder.
And let's not forget the mess at the border. Trump had managed to get the flow of illegals into the USA to drop by more than 75% while in office. In just 4 months, Biden has brought the number of illegals entering the country right back up to where it was when Obama left office. At the same time, Biden is keeping kids in cages at detention facilities but blocking any media that wants to cover the story from access to these sites. Biden is also proposing that all illegals get full benefits from the government without any limitation. One can only imagine what the average person in Central America thinks when he or she hears that by coming to the USA illegally, they can get free medical care, housing assistance, welfare, phones, and the like. Any sane person would leave immediately for the southern border.
Biden has been talking about what he calls an infrastructure bill, although it mostly leaves our most things that are traditionally considered infrastructure (like roads, bridges, etc.) No, Biden now has infrastructure being composed of more government welfare payments. This seems likely to fail, although one never knows.
Then there are Biden's schemes to raise all sorts of taxes. There are direct raises, like increasing the tax rate on American companies so that it will be harder for them to compete with China and other countries. There are also indirect increases like Biden's efforts to stop production of oil and gas with the result that gas prices have soared, thereby taxing each person in the USA who uses a car. Just think what the increase in the gas price from $2.50 per gallon to $4.00 has done to you.
Biden ran dishonestly as a moderate. In the first four months, he's governed as an totally incompetent version of Alexandria Ocasio Cortes and her socialist crew. It hasn't gone well.
It will be interesting to see if Biden is able to shift course to one more acceptable to the American majority. I doubt it. It's early still, but I predict that barring a major change by the Dems, Biden will spend the second half of his first term dealing with a large Republican majority in the House and a Senate again under Republican control.
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