by Joseph Klein
His deceptions on unemployment benefits, infrastructure bipartisanship, and inflation.
“Creepy Joe” started trending on Twitter last week after a bizarre June 24th press conference during which President Biden started answering reporters' questions in a whisper. Think of Biden as the donkey whisperer to the left-wing progressive base of his party and to his adoring fans in the mainstream media.
Biden weirdly leaned forward during the press conference and whispered to reporters that he “wrote the bill on the environment” (not clear what bill he was talking about). And then, presumably referring to the enhanced unemployment benefits that are incentivizing unemployed people to stay at home rather than fill the millions of current job openings, Biden whispered: “Pay them more. This is an employee’s — employee’s bargaining chip now what’s happening.”
Biden thought he was being clever. But all he showed was that he is a puppet of unions and of far-left progressives who want to pay people not to work.
In New York, for example, the average weekly unemployment benefit including the $300 federal boost has been calculated at $653. The weekly pay for a 40-hour week, using a $15 per hour minimum wage, would be $600. It doesn’t take an economist to see why unemployed residents of New York City, where the general hourly minimum wage is $15, would prefer to stay home and collect higher unemployment benefits than the wages they would earn if they went to work.
Government unemployment benefits were designed as a temporary safety net, not to serve as an employee bargaining chip. Due to the economic devastation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, the federal government has temporarily supplemented the unemployment benefit payments that states are providing to workers whose employment was terminated through no fault of their own. But these individuals are supposed to be looking for new jobs at least equivalent to the ones they lost. They are not supposed to just lie around on their couches and wait for the benefits paid for by hard-working Americans to keep rolling in.
With unfilled job openings aplenty now, particularly for service sector workers who became unemployed during the height of the pandemic, recipients of federal and state unemployment benefits should lose those benefits if they remain idle by choice. At least 25 states have already decided to end the bonus gravy train before it is due to expire in early September.
Biden was beaming with pride during his January 24th press conference about the supposed $1.2 trillion infrastructure deal he said he struck with a bipartisan group of senators. However, the progressives’ puppet then played bait and switch. When asked at his press conference whether he supported House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s stated plan to hold off on moving ahead with the bipartisan infrastructure deal in the House until the Senate also passes the Democrats’ multi-trillion dollar budget reconciliation bill, Biden said “Yes.” Biden added that he would not sign the bipartisan infrastructure bill unless he received it in tandem with the reconciliation bill. Then, when Biden saw that his comment had jeopardized Republican support for a bipartisan infrastructure bill, he quickly tried to calm their nerves.
Biden issued a clean-up statement on June 26th denying that he had issued “a veto threat on the very plan I had just agreed to.” But that’s just another Biden sleight of hand.
Biden had said at his June 24th press conference that he would not sign the infrastructure bill unless he also received the reconciliation bill to sign at the same time. All that Biden has to do is to work with the Democratic leaders in the House and Senate on legislative timing. First, after passage in the House and Senate, Biden would be sent the infrastructure bill. The leaders would then announce an adjournment date for both chambers less than 10 days from the date that Biden received the infrastructure bill. If the reconciliation bill does not also arrive at Biden’s desk for his signature by the time the chambers adjourn, Biden can simply sit back, not sign the infrastructure bill, and watch it fail to become law without using his veto pen.
Biden is trying to hoodwink the American people into believing that he is doing a great job on the economy, which is certainly not the case. During his June 24th press conference, for example, Biden tried to play down the seriousness of the current inflation threat that his reckless spending policies have triggered.
“And, by the way — talking inflation — the overwhelming consensus is it’s going to pop up a little bit and then go back down,” Biden told reporters. No big deal, he claimed. Biden's assertions are not true.
A significant number of academic economists at universities with notable economics programs surveyed by the New York Times are worried about Biden’s stimulus policies and that “inflation would rocket higher.” Larry Summers, a prominent economist who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, said that Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan passed last March was the “least responsible” policy in four decades. And that’s just a taste of what Biden has planned for the main course.
Inflation is a rotten deal for the American people. With their multi-trillion dollar spending wish lists, Biden and his left-wing progressive base are burning a big hole in everyday Americans’ pockets. Inflation is a regressive tax hitting people at the lower end of the economic scale the hardest. The annual inflation rate for the United States rose to 5.0% for the 12 months ended May 2021 – the highest in three decades. As long as Biden is letting his left-wing progressive base drive the public spending train, inflation under Biden’s watch will certainly not be some transitory bump as he would like us to believe.
President Biden is bringing a wrecking ball to the U.S. economy. He has done the same on so many other fronts as well, with his policies favoring open borders, appeasement abroad, the spread of racist Critical Race Theory throughout government, schools, and other institutions, etc. Biden may whisper to hide the truth, but the American people are catching on.
Joseph Klein
Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/06/bidens-press-conference-whispers-joseph-klein/
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