On the heels of the 2022 midterm election, President Joe Biden made it clear that he is not going to change a thing, despite seven in ten voters who said they were “dissatisfied” or “angry” with the state of the country, according to exit polls. When asked what he might do differently to address widespread concerns about withering inflation and a shaky economy, Biden, whose approval ratings remain mired in the low 40% range, replied, “nothing.”
That Republicans did not convert mass popular dissatisfaction into an electoral “red wave” across the country is an unmitigated failure that will embolden the president. Biden will brag that he avoided the typical midterm drubbing often suffered by the party of a first-term president and use it as a mandate to continue to push his disastrous agenda that helped create gas shortages, food shortages, labor shortages, a broken supply chain, runaway inflation, and crushing debt.
The unnecessary $2 trillion “rescue” plan that he rammed through Congress flooded America with cash and unleashed a four-decade high inflationary spiral. Sitting at 1.4% annually when he took office in January 2021, inflation skyrocketed to 9.1% in June 2022.
His bottomless appetite for spending ballooned our national debt to $31 trillion. Former Obama economist Larry Summers called it “the least responsible macroeconomic policy we’ve had in the last 40 years.”
The Federal Reserve, who helped cause this mess, has belatedly jacked up interest rates in a desperate attempt to tame inflation. As a result, mortgage rates more than doubled from 3% to 7%, putting the American Dream of owning a home out of reach for many families.
Biden has flatly refused to enforce standing immigration law, deliberately creating chaos at the Southern border. Millions of undocumented and unvetted people are pouring into our country, exposing women and children to human-trafficking and drowning America in lethal fentanyl. Now the leading cause of death in this country for 18-to-45-year-olds, fentanyl has killed more Americans than guns and traffic crashes combined, claiming 100,000 lives annually, according to the DEA. Add to that the tremendous costs that millions of illegal immigrants place on our strained education, healthcare and public safety resources.
Why would Biden purposely ignore his constitutional responsibility to protect the homeland while so many are suffering and dying? What’s the rationale for this absurd policy? What is he hoping to accomplish by throwing open the border? It is estimated that Mexican drug cartels are profiting from Biden’s porous border to the tune of $30 billion per year. Does he endorse this?
His energy policy is almost as destructive. Biden has fully bought into the Left’s global war on fossil fuels. His administration announced it will shut down all coal-fired power generation in this country (the source of 22% of our electricity) in the hopes that the resulting unaffordable natural gas prices will speed a transition to economically and technically unworkable alternative energy sources like wind and solar. Skyrocketing fuel prices will push millions of Americans into energy distress, where electricity and gas costs drag household disposable income below the government’s official poverty line.
Fossil fuels are still the key to civilization and economic development, lifting millions from poverty around the world. The notion that electric cars and renewable energy are environmentally friendly and a practical replacement for fossil fuels is a fantasy. There is no way to sustain industrial economies and higher living standards on intermittent energy sources that will require thousands of wind turbines, millions of solar panels, billions of batteries, and untold miles of new transmission lines — all of which would necessitate heavy metals mining and habitat-destroying installations on a global scale with dreadful environmental and human rights consequences at every stage.
And most Americans are blissfully unaware of looming shortages of diesel fuel and home heating oil. Biden depleted our emergency petroleum reserves in order to boost Democrat election prospects. Now, with winter setting in, an average household will spend 45% more for heating oil this winter, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Industry officials also warn that an unusually cold winter could strain the nation’s natural-gas-reliant electrical grid.
Finally, leftists at all levels of government are pushing decriminalization policies with predictable results. Minor crimes go unpunished. No-cash bail lets criminals walk. Early release for violent offenders. The rights of lawbreakers prioritized over those of victims. Inspired by Biden’s proclamations of woke virtue, big-city leaders are going soft on crime, wreaking havoc in their communities.
Runaway inflation. Ruinous debt. Anarchy at the border. Fuel and food shortages. Crime and homelessness on the rise. Americans divided. The question is, why has the administration never provided the American people with a truthful explanation of the goals behind these disastrous policies? You may have seen recently that the Washington Post awarded Biden a “bottomless Pinocchio” for his endless series of lies.
Ask yourself, if Biden was purposely trying to destroy this country, would he be doing anything differently?
Frank Dowd IV, Chairman of Charlotte Pipe and Foundry Company, is a registered Independent. Charlotte Pipe and Foundry is a 121-year-old U.S. manufacturer of cast iron and plastic pipe and fittings, headquartered in Charlotte, with seven plants around the country.
