Finally, a statement that President Biden and his critics may agree with.
The commander-in-chief insisted during a speech to members of the AFL-CIO union in Philadelphia on Tuesday that government spending “changes people’s lives.”
His opponents, ironically, agreed, citing annual inflation, which rose to 8.6% last month.
“I do not want to hear more than these lies about reckless spending. We change people’s lives! ”Biden shouted at one point during his speeches.
“Under President Biden, Americans’ lives have changed for the worse,” tweeted spokesman Mike Rodgers (R-Ala.).
“Press. Biden is right, “tweeted Senator John F. Kennedy (R-La.). “40 years of high inflation, a shortage of formula and $ 5 gas change lives …”
Joe Biden says his economic policies are saving lives. AFP via Getty Images Inflation rose to a 40-year high.AP
“You’re changing their lives for the better,” growled Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). “$ 5 + gas, no baby formula, historic inflation, historic crime wave.”
Back on the scene in Philadelphia, Biden has denied accusations from Republicans, federal bankers and even Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos that his spending has boosted inflation, which has raised prices more sharply than ever since 1981. .
The president cited two major spending bills: his $ 1.9 trillion U.S. Rescue Plan Act, which Democrats passed last year without Republican support, and last year’s $ 1.2 trillion bipartite infrastructure bill.
The rescue plan bill was not offset by new revenue and therefore contributed $ 30.5 trillion in government debt. The congressional budget service says the infrastructure bill will add $ 256 billion to the federal deficit.
Gas prices have risen across the country in recent months. Getty Images
The larger bill gave state and local governments $ 350 billion, along with $ 1,400 incentive checks for most Americans, an extended weekly $ 300 unemployment allowance and an extended annual tax credit for children to $ 3,000 to $ 3,600, compared to $ 2,000 per child.
Earlier, Biden said that spending improves people’s lives while making them compete for scarce resources.
“The irony is that people now have more money because of the first important piece of legislation I passed. You all have checks for $ 1400. You have checks for a whole host of things, “Biden said in November. “It changes people’s lives. But what if you have nothing to buy and more money to compete for? [goods]? That creates a real problem. “
A study published in late March by researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco says that in the last quarter of 2021, about 3 percentage points of inflation in the United States – or almost half of it at the time – may have been caused from government spending on a pandemic.
Biden went on to say on Tuesday that he had “put America in a position to deal with a global problem that is worse everywhere but not here: inflation” – although inflation in the United States is actually higher than in most other western countries.
Inflation in the United States in May – 8.6% – was higher than the euro area average of 8.1% and 5.4% in South Korea. The latest figures for Australia – 5.1% in March – show lower inflation than 8.5% in the US this month. The latest figures for Canada – 6.8% in April – are also lower than the comparable 8.3% in the US.
Biden also claims that the federal deficit has been reduced thanks to his leadership.
“Last year we reduced the deficit by $ 350 billion,” he said. “By the end of the fiscal year, we will reduce the federal deficit by another $ 1.6 trillion in one year.
Biden did not cite the coronavirus pandemic as the cause of the high deficit in 2020. AP
But Biden did not mention that the deficit was so large in 2020 because it was the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and involved huge bipartisan spending bills – including the $ 2.2 trillion CARES Act – while the Treasury brought less revenue due to economic shock.
Biden continued to urge Congress to wipe out the dust and pass on its troubled $ 2 trillion social and environmental spending package that centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WVa.) Effectively killed in December, citing inflation and what he called budget tricks to underestimate costs.
Biden said inflation was “destroying the strength of many families,” but the problem is that Republicans in Congress are doing everything they can to stop my plans to cut spending on ordinary families. That is why my plan is not complete, and the results are not complete. “
In addition to blaming Congress, Biden recently pointed the finger at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which has raised fuel and food prices and bottlenecks in the pandemic’s supply chain. The president also accused what he described as corporate greed of meat producers, oil companies and shipping conglomerates.
Critics have often blamed his spending and efforts last year to discourage fossil fuel production and distribution.
In a speech to the AFL-CIO, however, Biden described himself as the person most responsible for the economic improvement in his first year in office, which was facilitated in part by the widespread distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, which began in December 2020. the Trump administration.
Biden said his Rescue Plan Act “puts money in the pockets of hard-working Americans who were in trouble and thrown out on the street because they couldn’t pay the rent because of them” – ignoring mentioning that he took office at the time The expulsion defenses were still in effect by his predecessor Donald Trump’s executive order to establish a moratorium after Congress allowed the legal pause to be lifted in July 2020. The executive decree was revoked by the Supreme Court in August 2021.
“My predecessor was just the second president in history to leave office, there were fewer jobs in America than when he took office, but you have grown stronger. The other, by the way, was Herbert Hoover, “Biden scoffed. “And you just remember those long queues of cars stretching for miles back, waiting for just a box of food to be put back in their trunk?” It wasn’t just poor people. “
Biden continued: “And while that was happening, America created more billionaires during this crisis in 2020 than every year in history. Talk about contrast: ordinary people wait in line for an hour for a box of food. Politicians in the past have created more billionaires than ever before in American history. Folks, it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. We have inherited this. And then, with your help, we got to work. ”
Although the United States added approximately 56 billionaires in the first nine months of the pandemic, according to the Institute for Political Studies, bringing the total to 659, Biden’s earlier call for food lines was a problem due to local government-ordered shutdowns. need help.
Biden said last month that the “MAGA crowd” – referring to Trump’s slogan “Make America great again” – downplayed the huge food lines at the start of the pandemic – although then-first daughter Ivanka Trump organized a government program to distribute food cans and the fact that Trump has pressured conservative Republicans to extend the increased pay to the unemployed and give more generous incentive checks.
Add Comment