OPINION:
President Biden has not had a good first year. Because they work for the president, White House staffers must publicly pretend to think otherwise, and last week they put out a memo titled “2021: POTUS Delivered Results for Working Families.”
Mr. Biden started off on the wrong foot. Just hours after being sworn in, he signed one executive order canceling the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline and a second executive order launching the 30-day process for the United States to reenter the Paris Climate Agreement. The world took note — the new American president was not committed to U.S. energy independence.
That same day, he signed executive orders reversing his predecessor’s immigration policies, ordered an end to construction of the wall on the southern border and unveiled an immigration reform bill that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. The result was predictable — a surge of illegal immigration on the southern border at record-setting levels, leaving senior administration officials and spokespeople sputtering for answers.
Mr. Biden continued his bad streak when, less than two months later, Congress — without a single Republican vote, and at his urging – passed his signature piece of legislation, the $1.9 trillion “American Rescue Plan.” The Biden White House staff seems to think this was a good thing. This is apparent because it’s the first talking point in that year-end memo.
Those who think the enactment of that stimulus bill was a good thing were wrong. While Mr. Biden and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill celebrated his signature on the bill, they deliberately ignored economists’ warnings (including some liberals) that the bill’s economic stimulus would lead to runaway inflation. They arrogantly brushed off those concerns and introduced the word “transitory” to the lexicon, as if anyone worried about the return of the kind of debilitating inflation we saw 40 years ago was a tin-foil-hat-wearing rube.
On the foreign policy front, Mr. Biden set out to reverse the course set by his predecessor. In addition to rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, Mr. Biden declared his desire to reengage in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal. He sent American diplomats to Vienna to try to come to an agreement with Iran. Despite his administration’s best efforts, getting Iran to give up its nuclear program — which has now enriched uranium to the 60% level — remains elusive.
And, of course, there’s the disastrous and catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, for which not a single senior-level official has forfeited his job. Oddly, in this circumstance, he didn’t set out to reverse the policy put in his place by his predecessor. Mr. Biden simply botched the job terribly. Despite promises to the contrary, hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan allies were left behind, and America’s allies and adversaries took note.
Not too long after that, Democrats took a shellacking in the November elections. In Virginia, Republicans won a statewide election for the first time in 12 years. In New Jersey, a Republican candidate who spent just a few thousand dollars knocked off the most powerful politician in the state, the long-time president of the state Senate. Across the country, Democrats went down to shocking defeats.
Then came the passage of another trillion-dollar-plus spending bill, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework. Again, the federal government would shower money it didn’t have on things it couldn’t afford.
And then, as sure as night follows day, the inflation numbers surpassed the 6% mark: 6.2% in October and 6.8% in November. Not surprisingly, energy prices (remember that decision on the Keystone XL pipeline?) have soared since January — energy is up by 33.3%, gasoline prices are up 58.1%, and fuel oil is up 59%.
Finally, we have to look at the Biden administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. As a candidate, Mr. Biden said he saw no need for mandates; as president, he reversed himself and ordered vaccine mandates on federal workers and contractors, health care workers and even private companies. While the courts have blocked several of those orders from going into effect while being litigated, he seems not to care. (He didn’t care about the constitutionality of having the CDC impose an eviction moratorium, either, until the Supreme Court struck down his order.)
And while the White House’s “s’all good, man” memo brags that when Mr. Biden took office, “only 46% of schools were open,” but, “today, 99% of schools are open,” he doesn’t understand — based on what they’ve seen from the Biden administration already, no one believes that 99% of schools will stay open for one day longer than the teachers unions want them to.
Lockdowns haven’t worked, and vaccines haven’t worked (else why would be moving back to mask mandates?), so what’s left?
Apparently, an appeal to fear. The Biden administration has seemingly hired the ghost of Charles Dickens to write its COVID-19 warnings — as White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeffrey Zients recently declared, “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.”
Appealing to fear because you cannot find an uplifting appeal that unites the citizenry? Haven’t we seen this movie before, and doesn’t it look an awful lot like Jimmy Carter telling us to put on a sweater and turn down our thermostats? We know how that movie ended.
• Jenny Beth Martin is honorary chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
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