Voters are currently bemoaning the high inflation rates that have bedeviled them over the last year or so. Hey, who can blame them? No one wants to pay more for all the same stuff. Last year at this time it cost $20 to get Scott Baio to wash your car, and now he’ll do it for $10 and the unlicked portion of your Arby’s Melt wrapper. Okay, so that’s a bad example. Most things are more expensive these days—unless Kevin Sorbo is holding a bake sale in his garage to raise cash for his next Pure Flix movie. But other than that, we’re seeing high prices. That’s just a fact.
But there are several other facts that Republicans are conveniently missing these days.
For example:
- The last three Republican administrations ended in either recession or some other form of economic chaos.
- Donald Trump has the worst jobs record among presidents in modern American history.
- Conversely, President Joe Biden’s jobs record has been stellar. Since Biden’s inauguration, the economy has created a robust 7.9 million jobs, far outstripping Trump’s minus-3 million.
- Democratic presidents’ economic performance since World War II far outpaces that of their Republican counterparts.
- Republicans continue to block legislation that would both help middle-class Americans pay for necessities and, according to 17 Nobel laureates, “ease longer-term inflationary pressures.”
- Inflation is currently a global phenomenon, and the U.S. economy’s recovery under Biden has been faster than that of its competitors.
Of course, Republicans will squeal that Trump faced significant economic headwinds as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic—and that’s true. But 1) how does it make sense to let Trump off the hook for the impacts of a global economic downturn while simultaneously flogging Biden for today’s pandemic-related global inflation? And 2) I’m supposed to believe that Trump—who doesn’t know who pays for tariffs, once called his national security adviser in the middle of the night to ask what a strong dollar does, and thought he could eliminate the entire national debt in eight years—is some sort of macroeconomic savant?
So, yeah, most Republicans screeching about so-called “Bidenflation” probably know better, but they’re depending on voters’ short memories to return the party of perpetual economic failure to power in 2022 and 2024.
But not all Democrats are sitting still for this nonsense. Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, for example, is now castigating Senate Minority Bleater Moscow Mitch McConnell over his serial fiscal foolishness.
For the nontweeters:
NEW: Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) just shut down Mitch McConnell at a press conference: “There was $7 trillion in new debt and 2.6 million jobs lost during Trump. But when McConnell comes to this podium, all he does is complain that we’re not cleaning up their mess fast enough.”
Yes. Thank you.
Now, if this cynical GOP sleight-of-hand feels familiar, there’s a very good reason for that. After George W. Bush walked away from the heap of smoldering goat entrails he’d conjured from the remains of the U.S. economy, Republicans spent the next eight years obstructing everything President Barack Obama tried to do to create jobs and lift us out of the abyss. Meanwhile, they whined nonstop that the recovery wasn’t progressing fast enough. At the time I remarked that this was a bit like Exxon complaining that the residents of Valdez, Alaska, were really mediocre at cleaning oil off ducks. And now here they go again.
Of course, fecklessly complaining is what Republicans are best at. Helping struggling Americans is way down their list of priorities, somewhere behind preventing white children from ever hearing about slavery and keeping Mr. Potato Head’s tuberous todger intact.
So why don’t people know that Democrats’ economic track record is so much better than Republicans’? Maybe we haven’t been telling them loudly enough—and maybe the media have simply decided to lean into a false narrative for God knows what reason.
It’s outrageous, and it has to stop. So spread the word, if you can.
No comments:
Post a Comment