Commentary
President Biden is full of it, and I think you know what I mean.
From his claim of “13 million new jobs since I was elected – more than any president has ever created in their first two years” – to “the pay for low wage workers has grown at the fastest pace in two decades” to his claim that it’s because “our plan is working; it’s Bidenomics in action.”
Here’s how he began his speech in South Carolina last week:
“I’m here to talk to you about what we’re doing to invest in America – and I mean invest in America, all of America; it’s starting right here in South Carolina – and to talk about the progress we made in an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not trickling down.
“When you build from the middle out and bottom up, everybody does well, and the wealthy still do well. Our plan is working. And one of the things I’m most proud of is that it’s working everywhere, not just on the coasts and big cities, like previous recoveries.”
I hope you know that he has undertaken what the Wall Street Journal referred to as a “political salvage operation over the economy,” in which “he’s telling tales about how splendid everything is and why he deserves credit for it.”
Commenting on his claim of pay for low-wage workers, “the Journal editorial board noted “We’d like to see how his economists cherry-picked the data to justify that one.” I made a quick check with the fact-checker at the Washington Post and found no Pinocchio’s awarded.
With the latest RealClear Politics revealing his approval rating on the economy at 38.3 percent, people don’t think the economy is that great as they are experiencing the impact of the worst inflation in 40 years and their standard of living.
The infrastructure Biden talks about is primarily that connected to the Green New Deal and his misguided attempt to alter climate change. And those new jobs he has referred to since he came into office were supposed to be in the wind and solar sector.
Perhaps you haven’t heard about those “investments” that have not panned out. With the help of the Biden administration, New York built a quarter mile-long facility with 1.2 million square feet of industrial space, which it now owns and leases to Tesla for $1 a year. They also bought $240 million worth of solar panel manufacturing equipment.
The “flock” former Governor Cuomo predicted would come to this modern manufacturing hub never showed up. The only nearby business today is a coffee shop. Incidentally, most of the solar panel manufacturing equipment bought by the state has been sold at a discount or scrapped.
“In terms of sheer direct cost to taxpayers, this may rank as the single biggest economic development boondoggle in American history,” said E. J. McMahon founding senior fellow at the Empire Center for Public Policy.
To prepare for Tesla’s arrival and a “wave” of solar manufacturing jobs, Buffalo built a $44 million training center – in its economically disadvantaged east side, of course. In its four years of operation, it has graduated about 500 people, but only 20 to work at Tesla to work as equipment maintenance technicians.
Biden’s talk about investing in America is all talk. A U.S. battery maker backed by the administration reportedly relies on technology from the firm’s long-time Chinese manufacturing partner – Do-Fluoride New Materials – a Chinese Communist Party-led company.
While the Department of Energy awarded KORE Power, a U.S.-based battery firm an $850 million loan last month to construct its battery cell production facility in Arizona, it was tagged as part of the administration’s “onshore supply chain”
Of course, Biden chose to appear in South Carolina’s West Columbia, because it was there, too, that funds were funneled to Enphase, a company that benefited from his Inflation Reduction Act, to produce solar microinverters.
Michigan, known for its excellent rest stops along its Interstate highways, is touting tourism in radio and tv commercials by talking about its EV charging stations in these locations. But there are reports that the state lags charging stations despite receiving $16.3 million from the administration to build them. No word if the EV charging will be free of charge as in California.
“The massive investments in wind and solar additions for electricity generation were not even sufficient to keep with demand growth, let alone displace even a bit of existing fossil fuel generation,” writes Frances Menton in “World Now Wasting $1 Trillion or More Per Year Investing in Useless ‘Renewables’.”
Not all of the bad news is in the wind and solar sectors. In Wisconsin, a factory by Taiwan’s Foxconn, a technical device manufacturer, that was supposed to employ 13,000 workers in exchange for some $3 billion in state subsidies, sits mostly empty.
The next time you are in the grocery store, I hope you will remember how Bidenomics is improving your daily lives … or not.
May God continue to bless the United States of America and remind us daily that we are not doing better than we were BB … Before Biden.
