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Friday, December 23, 2022

How is Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan working out for the country?

December 27, 2022

President Joe Biden campaigned on the phrase “Build Back Better,” and as president has frequently used the phrase. The point he was trying to make was that things were really not so good under then-President Donald Trump, and if the country just had the good sense to elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the White House, things would improve.

Nearly half-way through his term, how is he doing?

A column by Beth Whitehead on The Federalist website is titled “11 Of The Biden Administration’s Greatest Failures So Far.” Let’s take a look at a few of these failures.

** Facilitating a Deadly Border - The effects of Biden’s refusal to enforce U.S. border and immigration laws are devastating. Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security, has said before a Congressional committee that the border is not open. He also said that the problems were inherited. And, he later denied having said the border is not open.

Putting some detail on that claim, Newsweek reported in September that “Data from the U.S. Border Patrol and Office of Field Operations compiled by Newsweek show that the average number of encounters under Biden reached totals of roughly 189,000 per month, compared to an average of just under 51,000 per month during the Trump presidency.” Sounds like an open border, doesn’t it?

Our southern border is controlled by cartels, which make millions of dollars smuggling men, women, and children across the border, which can be, and has been deadly for many of them. 

They also smuggle drugs, like fentanyl, which is deadly, along with other dangerous drugs. The number of Americans and others killed by fentanyl is in the thousands, and other drugs have taken thousands more lives. 

Roughly 3 million persons will have walked or waded across the border in Biden’s first two years, and we know little if anything about most of them. Some of them are criminals. Some of them probably were ill. Some of them were likely kidnapped.

** Shipping Illegals to a Community Near You - The president secretly shipped illegal aliens across state borders and into suburban cities and neighborhoods, without taking measures to deal with them, or even notifying these cities that the illegals would be coming.

** Holding Kids Hostage to Trans Radicalism - “In May, the Biden administration attempted to strong-arm public schools into letting males who identify as transgender use girls’ bathrooms by threatening to pull federal funding for school lunches if they didn’t,” Whitehead reported. “That’s 30 million lunch-program students Biden took hostage to push his party’s trans radicalism.”

** Tapping into Emergency Petroleum Reserves - So dedicated to the idea of killing the American fossil fuel industry, Biden decided that he would kill thousands of energy jobs, cancel fossil fuel projects, and gives up our energy independence, which we gained in the Trump presidency, and make up for that loss of oil by releasing oil from the national reserve, which exists for emergency use. 

He tries to cover his tracks by blaming our shortage on Russian leader Vladimir Putin and the Ukraine war. But it doesn’t work. And Americans really enjoyed paying double for gasoline that now is only $1 or so per gallon higher than when he took office. He hasn’t told us how he plans to replenish the petroleum reserve’s oil, or if he knows he must. Perhaps he’ll buy the oil from Putin.

** Driving up Inflation - Biden’s brilliance has produced an economy that has chalked up 40-year high inflation of 7.9 percent. Trying again unsuccessfully to shift the blame to Putin, it is clearly Biden’s policies that have driven up the prices of everything Americans need and want, like gas, food, clothing, building materials and household items. 

He appointed Jerome Powell to be Federal Reserve chairman, and Powell printed money well after the “need” for it was over. That, along with the American Rescue Plan, set the stage for the current inflation cycle. So far there is nothing indicating an end to this misery.

“Under the Biden administration, consumer prices rose so much faster than wages that the average family lost $5,800 in real annual income,” reports the Heritage Foundation. “Skyrocketing interest rates account for another $1,300 in lost annual income,” for a total of $7,100.  

** Botching the Afghanistan Withdrawal - Moving American military out of Afghanistan was always something we knew we would do. But it was never intended to be the disaster that Biden created. We left too quickly, without giving the Afghan troops time to prepare, and abandoned Bagram Air Base. We left behind Americans and Afghan allies to fend for themselves. We also left billions of dollars in weapons and equipment, which are now in the hands of the Taliban.

No president is perfect, although some have done wonderful things. Biden, on the other hand, has set a new standard for imperfection. There is an ongoing debate as to whether these horrible ideas are his, or whether he is just doing as someone or some group is telling him. Regardless, the buck stops with him.

Summarizing Biden’s performance, his three Bs are actually four Ds: Dereliction, Dangerous, Disastrous, and Disgraceful.

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