OPINION:
President Biden is nearly 80 years old. He was born way back in the middle of World War II, went to a prestigious academy as a boy, then a top university before attending law school (where he finished 76th out of a class of 85 after plagiarizing a law review article).
But here’s the thing: Mr. Biden passed the bar in 1969 (he got five draft deferments from the Vietnam War — for asthma), yet he wasn’t good at the gig: He didn’t like corporate law and quickly found out criminal law doesn’t pay well. Gotta make bank.
So he turned to politics. He started out on a county council in 1972, and then, at age 30, he won a seat in the Senate, the U.S. Senate. And he’s been sucking off the government teat ever since. On Nov. 20 this year, that’ll hit 50 years — half a century getting paid by taxpayers.
He’s gotten super rich during all his time in politics: He made nearly $18 million in the four years after serving as vice president for the Chosen One, former President Barack Obama. And while he once labeled himself the “poorest man in Congress,” one website says he’s now worth $41 million. He must be a brilliant investor given his paltry government salary.
So it’s no surprise that with a silver-spoon life like that, he knows nothing about what average Americans are going through right now. It’s hard to be tuned in to the plight of Americans when everything has always been handed to you.
Which brings us to today, a few days after the Bidens vacationed in a $20 million house on Kiawah Island, South Carolina (yup, he stayed for free — duh), before heading on Tuesday to his $3.5 million beach house (it rose $700,000 in value during Mr. Biden’s COVID-19 lockdowns).
Parents across the nation canceled summer vacations this year to afford back-to-school gear, and soaring gas prices have pushed average Americans to the brink, but Mr. Biden’s at the beach, chilling. By the way, while it’s free for Mr. Biden, you’re spending a fortune — millions — for him and his staff to luxuriate.
So what Mr. Biden said last week, in this context, makes perfect sense. While inflation rose 8.5% last month, Mr. Biden said in reality, it didn’t rise at all.
“I just want to say a number: zero. Today, we received news that our economy had zero inflation in the month of July. Zero percent,” Mr. Biden said.
Hang on. It was 8.5%. The boys who know — your boys — said so. But wait, Mr. Biden’s going to explain why it was zero.
“Here’s what that means: While the price of some things go up — went up last month, the price of other things went down by the same amount. The result? Zero inflation last month.”
So while a box of Triscuits now costs nearly $5, Mr. Biden was saying that gas has dropped from topping $5 to around $4 (it was $2.36 when he took office), so, hey, it all comes out in the wash, right?
Forget that Mr. Biden and his crack team also spent weeks trying to redefine what a recession is (economists agree it’s two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the gross domestic product [“negative growth” for you newcomers is when everything goes down, down, down]), Mr. Biden was saying that we’re all OK, that a loss here was offset by a gain there.
Americans know that’s just isn’t true. Everything costs more now — everything. And not just 8.5%. Eggs have nearly doubled in price. Gas is still up “only” 69% more than when Mr. Biden took office, rather than 108% more than it was, (not 8.5%), and everyone who has been to the grocery store lately knows that $100 gets you a couple of paltry bags (even those you now have to pay for, thanks, Joe).
One of the worst press secretaries in history, Karine Jean-Pierre, doubled down on Mr. Biden’s claim.
“We just received news that our economy had 0% inflation in July,” she tweeted Wednesday. “While the price of some things went up, the price of others, like gas, clothing, and more, dropped.”
It’s even worse than what Mr. Biden and the White House say. Productivity has plunged, down 4.6% last quarter after a staggering 7.4% drop in the year’s first three months. That was the biggest year-to-year drop in hourly output since the Labor Department began keeping records in 1948.
So that’s just how clueless our 79-year-old president, a career politician who has drawn a taxpayer-funded salary for nearly five decades, really is. He thinks he can tell the American people that, hey, it’s all good, bros. Inflation isn’t real. Forget what you see every day.
But you all should ask: When’s the last time Mr. Biden went to the grocery store, paid for his own gas — or his own $20 million vacation house? It’s time to retire this old bird — and don’t worry, you’ll pay him millions in his retirement.
He’s made sure of that. And that was the game all along.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.
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