President Joe Biden’s time in the White House is mercifully coming to an end. He is now officially a lame duck with six months to go.
Biden was a victim here of a corrupt Democratic machine that — along with a complicit media — thought they could pull off a grand election-year deceit, despite his failing cognitive abilities. The Democratic establishment and a compliant media convinced millions of primary voters that Biden was of sound mind and ready to serve four more years. This lust for power put America in danger.
How could they be so unpatriotic?
So, where will Biden stand in the history books? He was not a failed president because of his declining cognitive abilities. It was his policies that wrecked America.
It is hard to point to a single policy that he got right. On the economy, he was catastrophically bad.
The trillions of dollars of debt he rung up bought nothing. He sent inflation to the highest levels in almost forty years.
The average family lost $2,000 of income after inflation during his reign. More people died of COVID during his presidency than Trump’s — despite the availability of the vaccine.
Interest rates rose. Biden declared war on American energy. He put America back into the Paris Climate Accord—and the rest of the world went on using more fossil fuels than ever. By impeding U.S. oil and gas production and pipelines he played into the hands of our enemies — China and Iran.
Gas prices rose. Small business confidence sagged. Poverty rates rose.
Then there was the sheer incompetence. The bungled Afghanistan withdrawal was a national security disaster. The border became a broken dam with millions seeking to illegally enter the country. The government spent $7.5 billion on electric vehicle chargers and only a handful got built.
Biden gave away hundreds of billions of dollars for an illegal and immoral student loan forgiveness program. He put regulators in charge of key agencies even though — or because — they hate business. A majority of his appointees had no business experience. It showed.
When he departs the White House in the months ahead he will leave the nation poorer, weaker, more divided, more in debt, more vulnerable, and less respected than when he entered office.
This was a man who pledged to unite the country and did just the opposite. He deserves to go down in history as one of the five worst presidents of the 20th and 21st century.
Here is my list starting with the worst: 1) Woodrow Wilson; 2) Herbert Hoover: 3) Jimmy Carter; 4) Joe Biden; 5) Barack Obama.
Now the Democrats want to run Vice President Kamala Harris, who was on board with every Biden policy and helped oversee the worst border catastrophe in modern history.
Just when you thought things could not get any worse.
Stephen Moore is a contributor to The Daily Caller News Foundation, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and a co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.
Joe Biden loves to give away money, especially if it’s not his own. He has spent trillions of dollars for political benefit that didn’t need otherwise to be spent.
The recipients laud his compassion and generosity. Common Americans though are trapped in an inflationary spiral while our grandchildren face an unpayable bill.
Thus, in a recent presentation about his second attempt to forgive student loan debt, he actually bragged about the hundreds of billions it would cost. He twice mentioned the fact that many blacks would receive benefits.
He became so consumed in self-congratulation that he apparently lost awareness of how blatant his political pandering was. We know black voters are a key demographic in play in the upcoming election.
Biden’s sheer enthusiasm for spending again evidenced itself in his response to the Baltimore bridge collapse. His first reaction was to guarantee that the federal government would underwrite the entire cost of reconstruction. What a guy!
Neither offer made sense. Regarding the student loan debt, the Supreme Court had affirmed that the Constitution means what it says, that the power to initiate spending lies solely with Congress. Most public criticism focused on the obvious unfairness of the policy, how it would disadvantage those who had been responsible in favor of those who wished to renounce their legal obligations.
Biden’s bridge proposal was also nonsense. The bridge isn’t owned by the United States. There is no conceivable reason for the federal government to be deemed responsible for its repair. The bridge was demolished by a cargo ship, in an industry which insures heavily against such misfortunes. Other jurisdictions have also acknowledged partial responsibility.
Here’s the problem with the mindset that it’s okay to get involved with all these giveaways: we don’t have the money. We’re seriously in debt, with expenses vastly exceeding our income and no plan in place for repayment or even deficit reduction.
Biden is hardly the only politician who has deduced that spending other people’s money (OPM) can win elections. Even many Republicans, to their shame, support the spending juggernaut. The spenders are the moral equivalent of a wastrel with no money and no job, with bankruptcy looming, who continues to pick up tabs and buy pricey gifts with credit cards he has no intention of paying off.
Still, the spenders know that Americans have mostly normalized excessive spending even when unnecessary. So, Biden was able to propose a whopping $7.3 trillion budget for next year (up $500 billion in the last year alone) without provoking much outrage.
The $2 trillion spent on COVID relief accomplished nothing. It was mainly an excuse to push more money out the door. At least it was supposed to be temporary. Biden’s budget though would pocket the COVID bump and add yet more permanent spending, mostly on programs for “climate change” and other boondoggles. A $10 trillion budget by 2033 is projected.
What can’t go on forever won’t. Our present course is unsustainable. Income tax revenues are soaring, yet the debt continues to grow. We are using borrowed money to pay the debt interest, which has surpassed all budget items except entitlement programs.
How do we get out of this death spiral? The left’s favorite solution is to raise taxes. That doesn’t work. The historical record shows that tax increases put us further in the hole.
For example, the Obamacare tax increases raised $1.4 trillion but so hindered economic growth, according to the Congressional Budget Office, that the feds lost $3.8 trillion in revenues. In contrast, President Clinton signed the 1997 Republican tax and spending cuts. Four years of budget surpluses ensued.
It’s well known that reform of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is necessary for a balanced budget. Yet both parties are interested only in demagoguing the other if they catch them even considering the issue. If the politicians, including Donald Trump, continue to insist on prioritizing incumbent reelection, the only way out may be for the people to take matters into our own hands.
Anybody else interested in seriously revisiting the notion of amending the Constitution to mandate a balanced budget? Sure, it may (or may not) be difficult, but the consequence of doing nothing is surely worse.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
Inflation persists due to record levels of spending over the past three years, according to Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., in a speech on the House floor Thursday night.
Schweikert said the total deficit spending for FY24 will be dramatically higher than both the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) initially projected if the national debt continues to increase at the current pace of over $99,000 per second.
Last May, Congressional fights over the next speaker overshadowed the greater concern, the national debt, Schweikert said.
“And think of this — in that time, we were fighting over like $16 billion,” he said. “We’re borrowing about $9 billion a day. So we’ve gone how many months, and we’ve never gotten around to actually working on the real problems because of the theatrics around here.”
As a result, the Scottsdale-Phoenix area resident said the Congressional Budget Office missed its FY24 deficit spending projection by $1 trillion.
Interest spending alone is projected to top $1 trillion this fiscal year, he said.
“When I came here a couple of months ago and said we could be heading for $1 trillion [in interest spending], I got mocked. I even saw my colleagues go, ‘Schweikert, you’ve got to stop making things up!’ Well, turns out I’m right,” he said.
“We will spend all day fighting over a few million here, which is important, and I am willing to cut these things, but we’re picking up pennies off the ground as the avalanche is crushing us,” he continued. “Because that same day we fought over those millions, we borrowed $9 billion a day when we are fighting over millions. Understand, $1 trillion has 12 zeros. Start to work your zeros and understand the scale.”
Addressing inflation, Schweikert said America is paying the price for spending money in ways that did not actually spike productivity. He said subsidizing things does not yield the most efficient and cheap way to produce them.
Schweikert advocated for a level of competition so the best, fastest product is rewarded.
“The last two months, [inflation] hasn’t been going down the way it’s supposed to,” he said. “So expect these interest rates I just showed you to continue. And if you live in my neighborhood, if you live in the Scottsdale-Phoenix area — wonderful area, absolutely incredibly beautiful this time of year. From January 2021 to two months ago, if you’re not making 23.6% more, you are poorer today than you were in January 2021.”
Making Americans less sick with new healthcare technology is one of the most powerful things we could do to lower the national debt, he said. Six weeks ago, the FDA approved the first cure to sickle cell anemia.
“Artificial intelligence is about to have a revolution in bringing cures to market dramatically faster,” Schweikert stated. “We’ve actually now had the first couple of AI drugs designed to make it through the FDA.”
Schweikert said policies can make it possible to bring new drugs to the market without costing $100 million.
“Do we think about things we could do in farm policy and nutrition policy in helping our brothers and sisters live better, healthier, more prosperous, [improve their] ability to join the labor force, maybe family formation, crushing income inequality,” he asked his fellow congress members.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
Americans are feeling growing unease about the accumulating dysfunctions afflicting us which seem to elude governmental solutions. The combination of weak leadership and irresolute voters has led to diminished standing internationally, inflation, rising crime rates, energy shortages, the hollowing out of once-great cities, and persistent racial disparities.
Yet the greatest threats of all to our future are the national debt and illegal immigration, both of which are wildly out of control. These two dangers, if not soon contained, threaten to consign our beloved nation to second-tier status.
Yes, it could happen. Americans tend to believe that everything will be OK, because this is America where everything naturally gets better.
But there’s nothing inevitable about our good fortune. Yes, we have a fortuitous history, but the music could stop at any time if we habitually neglect the discipline necessary for successful self-government.
There’s even an ominous question of whether the debt and illegal immigration are even solvable at this point. Yes, we’ve carried high debt loads before, notably after World War II. Strong economic growth rescued us then. Innovation and improved productivity are again our only realistic hope of avoiding sharp economic decline.
But we’ve worked ourselves into a dangerous situation, where our annual debt service has reached $1 trillion. We are forced to borrow to make interest payments while our debt continues to grow – a death spiral normally leading to bankruptcy. Creditors will soon demand higher interest payments, and many may refuse to buy our debt altogether.
The effects of the massive migration of the last few years will also be difficult to reverse. Even if we ended illegal immigration today, the 20 million new residents among us aren’t going home, and deportation of this scope may be impossible.
At least two million are “gotaways” who intentionally avoided border check points, for reasons we can easily guess. This means not only will our lives become more dangerous, but social, educational, and criminal justice systems will all be undergoing stress tests just at a time when we are running out of money (see above).
Sure, Democrats have enthusiastically led the open borders craze. They ludicrously claim there is nothing they can do unless Republicans will legislate more, spend more, and agree to comprehensive immigration reform, a.k.a. universal amnesty.
But Republicans had their chance to close the border and didn’t. Instead of cutting back immigration, the Trump administration could have used executive authority to close the border entirely to unauthorized entry, as the law requires.
Americans’ traditional respect for the Rule of Law is a linchpin of our national success. We ignore it to our detriment. We now will pay an awful price for keeping the door cracked a little open when the law is clear.
Democrats have also led the charge for irresponsible spending for false reasons (COVID) or for pure political gain (student loan forgiveness). But Republicans have failed to be the adults in the room, quailing at the threatened “government shutdowns” during spending debates, sneakily supporting spending abuses like earmarks, and generally refusing to expend political capital on spending reductions.
When you’re in a hole, stop digging, right? The first orders of business are to close the border and balance the budget. Both require prodigious amounts of political will, and these are just the first steps.
There is some hope in the sudden transformation of the formerly sanctimonious sanctuary city jurisdictions. When faced with the realities of millions of unvetted, unskilled dependents demanding…well, everything, they are swiftly losing their enthusiasm.
For now, the self-described humanitarians are demanding more help in processing and caring for illegal immigrants, but it’s likely they will become more realistic before long. We’ll see. Voters clearly respond more constructively to crises which affect them personally, which our unmanageable debt will also soon begin to do.
Many historians believe we are seeing the inevitable decline of a still great civilization, a highly successful republic that by choice never became an empire yet achieved dominance and wealth. Like many before us, prosperity produced softness and self-indulgence in the citizenry and so we too may sink into the dustbin of history.
Somehow, we must not – we cannot – let that happen.
Dr. Thomas Patterson, former Chairman of the Goldwater Institute, is a retired emergency physician. He served as an Arizona State senator for 10 years in the 1990s, and as Majority Leader from 93-96. He is the author of Arizona’s original charter schools bill.
Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., urged Congress to “take our nation’s fiscal health seriously” in response to the growing national debt.
Schweikert’s Daily Debt Monitor shows the federal government’s gross national debt increasing by $839 billion already this fiscal year, which began in October.
So far this fiscal year (3 months in), the total national debt has increased by $839 billion. That's ~$8.65 billion per day, and just over $100,000 per second.
I implore my brothers and sisters in Congress to take our nation's fiscal health seriously. pic.twitter.com/7XACzQ0mjM
“That’s ~$8.65 billion per day, and just over $100,000 per second,” Schweikert tweeted.
“I implore my brothers and sisters in Congress to take our nation’s fiscal health seriously,” the congressman continued.
The national debt has increased by more than $360 million per hour, $6 million per minute, and $100,00 per second this fiscal year.
The total national debt as of Jan. 4 was more than $34 trillion, compared to around $31 trillion on Jan. 4, 2023. This includes both intragovernmental and publicly held debt. Between 2023 and 2024, there was an increase in debt of more than $7 billion per day and $300 million per hour.
The national debt hit the $34 trillion record this month. The Congressional Budget Office’s January 2020 projections didn’t expect gross federal debt to surpass $34 trillion until fiscal year 2029.
The Congressional Budget Office expects the debt to only get worse in coming years. An estimate shows America’s entitlement spending, mandatory spending, and net interest payments on the debt will exceed the government’s total revenue by the early 2030s.
In June, Republican lawmakers and the White House agreed to temporarily lift the nation’s debt limit, making an agreement that lasts until January 2025.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated in its 30-year outlook last June that publicly held debt will be equal to a record 181% of American economic activity by 2053.
Elizabeth Troutman is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send her news tips using this link.
