OPINION:
President Biden told the American public his “Build Back Better” agenda would cost exactly $0, despite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office showing in two separate studies that the plan over the next decade would add $367 billion to the deficit and $3 trillion to our national debt.
Mr. Biden said his plan wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000. The congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, however, begged to differ. The White House claimed Build Back Better wouldn’t discourage work, but a University of Chicago analysis found just the opposite.
And after initially pitching the proposal as a social welfare and climate change bill, the White House quickly reversed course and said passing Build Back Better’s social programs would help moderate rapidly spiking inflation. Even Steven Rattner, former President Barack Obama’s economic czar, had to call out the pure BS on that one.
“The administration should come clean with voters about the impact of its spending plans on inflation,” Mr. Rattner wrote in The New York Times last month, adding: “The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that [Build Back Better] would likely add $800 billion or more to the deficit over the next five years, exacerbating inflationary pressures.”
Yet it’s impossible for the Biden White House to “come clean” on anything — their entire strategy is to gaslight the American people into believing false narratives so they can pass their radical agenda to “transform” the country into a socialist nation. And some parts of the so-called free press are only too eager to publish their spin and excuse their lies.
Take, for example, the ongoing border crisis. Initially, the Biden administration said the surge in border crossings was “seasonal” and would fade in the summer months, and repeatedly denied it was a “crisis.” In November, 173,600 migrants were arrested at the southern border, a 5% increase from the number arrested in October, and more than double the number caught last year.
As the situation worsens — an estimated 2 million illegal crossers are expected this year — the mainstream media have largely avoided the topic, giving the White House cover. Just like rising inflation rates that were never “transitional,” Mr. Biden’s border crisis was never “seasonal.”
Then there’s the ongoing coronavirus debate. Despite Mr. Biden’s promises to “shut down the virus” while on the campaign trail, there have been more COVID-19 deaths in 2021 than there were in all of 2020.
Failing to stop the virus, the Biden administration has framed the narrative as the vaccinated against the unvaccinated — completely ignoring natural immunity or focusing on effective therapeutics to treat those who contract the virus. As the administration knows darn well, many who have been vaccinated and even boosted are still catching — and spreading — the virus.
To highlight Tuesday’s COVID-19 presser, the White House sent the following briefing to journalists: “We are intent on not letting [the COVID-19 omicron variant] disrupt work and school for the vaccinated. You’ve done the right thing, and we will get through this.”
It continued: “For the unvaccinated, you’re looking at a winter of severe illness and death for yourselves, your families and the hospitals you may soon overwhelm.”
Merry Christmas, you filthy animals! Of course, the media ran with the narrative. Failing to stop the virus must be someone’s fault, and it sure isn’t going to be the Biden administration.
For the past 11 months that Mr. Biden’s been in office, the gaslighting, outright lies and blame-shifting are almost too onerous to track.
The Afghanistan withdrawal debacle, which killed 13 U.S. service members and left so many American citizens behind? “One of the biggest airlifts in history.”
Democrats defunding the police? It was actually Republicans who “defunded the police” by not supporting Mr. Biden’s American Rescue Plan.
The surge in smash-and-grab robberies? COVID-19 is the “root cause of lawlessness.”
Red states passing voter integrity laws? “Jim Crow 2.0.”
Last week, the White House sent a memo to select reporters outlining year-end “accomplishments,” a list which could only be described as a war on reality. As Americans face near a 40-year high in consumer goods inflation, the Biden team took credit for lowering gas prices a whopping 10 cents. It claimed credit for a 70% jump in vaccination rates year-over-year, failing to mention it inherited the vaccines from the Trump administration and that the 2020 rollout was barely getting started last December.
They also claimed credit for the creation of new jobs. Of course, they didn’t cite Florida, which under a Republican governor accounts for less than 7% of the nation’s population but almost 25% of new jobs nationwide. Equally inconvenient, with the exception of Arkansas, Democrats control every state with the nation’s highest unemployment rates.
Mr. Biden and his aides can spin the facts all they want — to be honest, it’s really the only thing they’re competent at.
The good news is the American people aren’t buying what they’re spinning. Mr. Biden’s disapproval rating in poll after poll is well above 50%, a full six points worse than Mr. Obama’s before the Democrats’ 2010 midterm wipeout.
• Kelly Sadler is the commentary editor at The Washington Times.
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