The Patriot Post® · Biden's Bad Economy Blame Game
Every president takes too much credit for economic gains and (sometimes unfairly) blames his predecessor for any headwinds. President Joe Biden has been in Washington so long that this behavior is second nature. Thus, it was no surprise to see him do both as he bumbled through remarks Friday at “exactly 12:00,” which he helpfully pointed out in his second sentence to “put today’s jobs report in perspective.” It was indeed the most disappointing and off-expectations jobs report in decades, so Biden had some blame to cast on Donald Trump.
First, let’s pause for a minute to review. The ChiCom Virus pandemic brought lockdowns that went from a 15-days-to-flatten-the-curve hardship to a 15-month battle to preserve our economy, our way of life, and our Liberty itself. In addition to fearmongering and overextended lockdowns, ill-conceived mitigation policies like enhanced unemployment benefits sidelined workers for too long. Biden and the Democrats used the pandemic as their primary tool for convincing voters to dump Trump in 2020. Now they’re using it as an excuse to reengineer the economy from DC on down, while talking about it in terms of a “rescue.”
Back to Biden’s remarks, he began by saying that missed expectations actually exceeded his expectations. “Look, when we came to office, we knew we were facing a once-in-a-century pandemic and a once-in-a-generation economic crisis,” he said. “And we knew this wouldn’t be a sprint; it would be a marathon. Quite frankly, we are moving more rapidly than I thought we would.” What economists is he listening to?
Biden cherry-picked some jobs numbers to illustrate that he has in fact done a great job and Friday’s hugely disappointing report was actually good news. “This is progress,” he insisted. “And it’s a testament to our new strategy of growing this economy from the bottom up and the middle out. And it’s a clear testament to why it’s so needed.”
The Six Trillion Dollar Man’s Big Government programs are necessary, he went on to argue: “Some critics said that we didn’t need the American Rescue Plan, that this economy would just heal itself. Today’s report just underscores, in my view, how vital the actions we’re taking are. … Our efforts are starting to work, but the climb is steep and we still have a long way to go.”
He also called the jobs report “a rebuttal to the loose talk that the Americans just don’t want to work.” That’s a mendacious framing of the provable truth that paying people more not to work than to work means people won’t work. Moreover, Democrat spendthrifts seeded expectations for a $15 minimum wage by matching $600 a week in enhanced benefits to what a worker earning $15 an hour would bring home.
All of this is why Biden didn’t make any coherent arguments to actually rebut anything. Like a nervous tick, he just kept repeating empty bromides like “that’s why the American Rescue Plan is so important” and “thank goodness we passed the American Rescue Plan.”
When you want to spend $6 trillion — causing massive inflation and other side effects — you have to convince people it’s necessary and working. Part of the Democrats’ strategy is to use the fact that new job numbers came in 75% below estimates in order to argue that it’s critical to pass more of their ostensible economic aid.
Indeed, going back a minute, at one point when Biden talked about the so-called “American Rescue Plan,” he stumbled and said, “Ameriscan.” Come to think of it, Ameriscam might just be the perfect name for Biden’s schemes.