The Witness Chronicles, June 21, 2024
Biden has done a lot for the average American
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Trump Voters in Denial of Biden’s (real) Track Record
An argument for getting your news from multiple sources
I regularly get comments where a reader tells me that Joe Biden has accomplished nothing during his administration, despite a track record of huge accomplishments, even in a highly polarized political environment.
The infrastructure Bill has funded over 70,000 projects all across the country in every state, fixing bridges, highways, rail travel, energy grids, and many other kinds of projects. This is so popular that Republican Congress members who voted against it are blatantly claiming credit for projects in their districts or states.
Then there’s the CHIPs act, designed to take back the US lead in semiconductor design and manufacture, funding thousands of high paying jobs, building state of the art plants, and protecting our intellectual property (IP) from outright theft by China; IP critical to US security and protecting our lead in artificial intelligence.
China desperately needs those advanced chips and the tools to build them. AI is essential to the development of advanced military capabilities. It is already creating a huge economic advantage for the US. The bill includes sanctions against selling chips and chip fabricating equipment to China, the biggest threat to world peace.
These two accomplishments outweigh anything done during the Trump administration, despite Trump’s constant bragging that his Infrastructure Week was just around the corner. It was not and we never saw any of his promised BIG things, with the exception of a huge tax break that funneled money to the one percent wealthiest people in the country.
That action alone added $7 trillion dollars to the federal deficit with zero benefit to the vast majority of American families. It weakened our economy and then Covid did a number on everything, creating rampant inflation as global supply chains froze up.
Recovery has been slow but steady and we now have the strongest economy of any major global market, with the lowest unemployment in six decades. Biden authorized a huge injection of money into the economy during the worst days of the pandemic, money that saved thousands of businesses and millions of jobs, not to mention building a base for growth.
Economies typically grow back from catastrophes slowly but we are seeing steady growth and gradually falling interest rates. Home prices have skyrocketed and the financial markets are thriving with all three indexes hitting record highs repeatedly in the last year.
Biden gets blamed for immigration, a problem far beyond his control after Trump demanded that Republicans kill funding to control the borders so Biden could not claim any progress on the difficult problem. This may be the most cynical political action of this dysfunctional congress, as Republicans scream about the horrors of immigrants, horrors that are largely false and that they did nothing to stop.
Trump screams about rising crime and the hellhole our country has become, conveniently ignoring the data showing crime has plummeted across the country in the past three years. The only crime statistic that is up is gun crime, directly related to the Republican refusal to enact any controls on any kind of guns, even when they are used repeatedly in mass shootings.
These are facts, not made up conspiracy theories, though you would never know it if you get your news exclusively from Fox and it’s affiliates. It’s a strong argument for checking out news sources from a wide range of political views.
If your ‘news’ comes exclusively from pundits who make their living from concocting ridiculous stories to instill fear in voters and to get ratings you might want to look elsewhere. These days, with wide access to information via the internet, we can verify facts if we use resources available to anyone who bothers.
And that is at the heart of the problem: the irresponsible laziness about informing ourselves and just taking known liars at the word.
Next week’s debate, if Trump doesn’t back out, will have Biden armed with a litany of facts and positive stories of real, measurable accomplishments, while Trump will simply make things up with no policies or proof to back up anything he says.
Will it make any difference? As I’ve said repeatedly, every election story chips away at Trump’s credibility bit by bit. It’s death by a thousand cuts but the question remains, is anyone paying attention?
~ I write The Grasshopper, an occasional letter on the creative life and it’s sister, mostly daily publication The Witness Chronicles, a place for my articles on politics and climate. They share a free and paid subscription. I also write The Remarkable, a recovery letter, about my addiction and reentry experience. I don’t paywall any content in these, however this is how I live and I strongly believe all writers and creatives should get paid, if we provide value. Your support with a paid subscription helps make that happen.
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