Inside the Beltway: Biden’s bait-and-switch presidency

NEWS AND OPINION:

Can it be that President Biden has only been in office for 72 days? Some observers may be under the impression that it’s been more like 72 years or even 72 minutes — but no matter. Here’s a tidy summation of the presidential performance so far.

“Joe Biden was elected as a moderate-left Democrat, but he is not governing as one. He pledged repeatedly to work across party lines, but he is ramming through the biggest, most expensive progressive agenda in American history without any Republican votes,” writes Charles Lipson, a professor emeritus of international politics at the University of Chicago and contributor to RealClearPolitics.com.

“He is almost certain to try it again with his next two spending proposals, the largest since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs. As the White House pushes these mammoth bills with only Democratic votes, Americans are realizing they got a very different president from the one they bargained for, the one they were promised during the campaign. What’s unclear is whether they will recoil from this new reality,” Mr. Lipson advises.

“The result is a president determined to pass everything on the Democrats’ all-you-can-eat menu, even if he has to do it with strict party-line votes. As a candidate, Joe Biden promised voters a center-left agenda and bipartisanship. As a president, he is giving them neither. Biden’s deception is based on the oldest marketing technique in the book: bait and switch,” Mr. Lipson later concludes.

FOR THE LEXICON

“Democrat newsletter.”

That’s an appropriate new name for The New York Times, according to Mollie Hemingway, senior editor for The Federalist. She was inspired by the news organization’s lengthy coverage of President Biden’s gargantuan infrastructure plan.

“After years of pushing lies, the Democrat newsletter NYT pushed so much Democrat propaganda today on its front page that it is literally just being tweeted out like a press release by the White House. The media are corrupt, partisan propagandists. Treat them as such,” Ms. Hemingway noted in a tweet.

The tweet was later labeled with a warning as a source of “potentially sensitive content” by Twitter.

$2,200,000,000,000

It is either helpful or alarming to remember that President Biden’s $2.2 trillion “infrastructure” plan actually looks like this: $2,200,000,000,000.

Eagle-eyed Republicans have examined all the available data about the plan and revealed that only 7% of this behemoth price tag is actually allocated for what Americans traditionally think of as “infrastructure” — roads, bridges, waterways, ports and airports.

So says Tommy Pigott, rapid response director for the Republican National Committee.

“That’s right — of Biden’s $2.25 trillion bill, only $115 billion is allocated for repairing roads and bridges, only $25 billion for airports, and only $17 billion is for waterways and ports,” Mr. Pigott explains.

“And to pay for his noninfrastructure bill, Biden is proposing $1.8 trillion in tax hikes that would kill hundreds of thousands of jobs, and raise the combined tax rate on U.S. businesses to the highest of any country in the G-7,” he says, referring to the Group of Seven, a grouping of the world’s seven biggest democratic economies — the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Mr. Pigott also says the tax rate will also be higher than those found among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a broader grouping of 37 democratic countries that includes such nations as South Korea, Australia and Israel.

“Reckless spending, higher taxes, and a less competitive business environment. That’s not the plan America needs as it recovers from a pandemic. That’s a recipe for fewer jobs and less money in Americans’ pockets, all to appease the far-left special interest groups occupying the swamp in Washington, D.C.,” Mr. Pigott cautions.

WHAT TRUMP SAID ON EASTER, 2020

A reminder, perhaps, of the nation’s status almost a year ago.

“Though we will not be able to gather together with one another as we normally would on Easter, we can use this sacred time to focus on prayer, reflection, and growing in our personal relationship with God,” then-President Donald Trump told Americans in a public address from the White House on April 10, 2020.

“I ask all Americans to pray that God will heal our nation; to bring comfort to those who are grieving; to give strength to the doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers; to restore health to the sick and to renew the hope in every person who is suffering. Our nation will come through like never before. I thank the many families who have prayed for me and for my family. And your prayers are felt, and I am forever grateful,” Mr. Trump said.

WEEKEND REAL ESTATE

For sale: Howard Island, a two-acre private island on Potagannissing Bay, Lake Huron, near Drummond Island Township, Michigan. Includes a “little gem” of a cottage with two bedrooms, one bath, kitchen, fireplace, rustic knotty-pine interior, large windows, new septic tank plus a “quaint guest cottage” that sleeps four, has loft and fireplace. Boathouse, deep water crib dock, 12 miles from Canadian border. Priced at $395,000 from PrivateIslandsOnline.com.

POLL DU JOUR

• 38% of U.S. adults say it should be “much easier or slightly easier” to vote in American elections; 16% of Republicans, 37% of independents and 60% of Democrats agree.

• 10% of those who voted for former President Donald Trump and 72% of those who voted for President Biden also agree.

• 28% of U.S. adults say it should be “much harder or slightly harder” to vote in elections; 57% of Republicans, 30% of independents, 8% of Democrats, 65% of Trump voters and 6% of Biden voters agree.

• 21% of U.S. adults say there should be “no change” in the voting system; 18% of Republicans, 21% of independents, 23% of Democrats, 19% of Trump voters and 16% of Biden voters agree.

• 12% are not sure; 9% of Republicans, 12% of independents and 9% of Democrats, 6% of Trump voters and 6% of Biden voters agree.

Source: An Economist/YouGov poll of 1,500 U.S. adults conducted March 27-30.

• Have a happy and productive Easter, and thank you for reading Inside the Beltway.