Ranking Member Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
This op-ed originally appeared in The Hill.
Less than two years ago, the United States had 1.2 million more jobs than people to fill them, Americans had more money in their pockets, and Main Street was open for business. These measures of success had never been seen in our nation’s history, all thanks to pro-America policies that led to our economic boom.
As the pandemic thwarted our thriving economy last year, I sat down with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell to discuss what was needed to achieve a successful post-pandemic economic rebound. Most of his models projected that it would be nearly impossible to quickly bounce back, but he did not consider the “1.2 million more jobs” factor that our country had only one year prior. As the chairman and I discussed his models, I was confident that if we utilized our America First policies and liberated our small businesses, we could poise our economy to take off as the COVID-19 pandemic subsided.
Fast forward to 2021 where the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board said it best: “The threats to growth will come when Mr. Biden’s waves of regulation and tax increases arrive.” It is now clear that the American people are stuck in President Biden’s “EO” game of executive order versus economic opportunity, leaving them to wonder if our economy will ever recover during this new administration.
On his first day in office, President Biden killed thousands of American jobs with the stroke of a pen. By halting projects such as the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline along with the wall at our southern border, real jobs were taken away from real people who have real families to support. Not to mention, terminating these construction projects mid-stream costs millions in taxpayer dollars, an irrational solution especially during a pandemic.
As President Biden bulldozes through new and former executive orders, he has not only killed countless jobs but also opened the door to potential burdensome regulations on our nation’s small businesses. Biden immediately revoked Executive Order 13771, doing away with the “cut 2 for every 1 regulation added” model imposed under the Trump administration. Additionally, after repealing an executive order that treated guidance documents as non-binding, President Biden has officially cleared the path for major government agency overreach.
So, what do we, as legislators, need to do to continue in a positive economic direction? The last four years showed that our economy thrives through tax cuts, deregulation, and targeted assistance with minimal red tape. As lead Republican, I will ensure the House Small Business Committee closely watches President Biden and his frenzy of executive orders while pushing back on his job-killing policies. With the recent report of fourth quarter economic growth at 4 percent, it is evident that an economic rebound is right at our front door.
As small businesses across the nation have been suffocated by overreaching shutdown regulations from their Democrat state and local leaders, “closed for business” has become a new norm for the American people. Once we put the pandemic behind us, we have great things ahead of us. But this economic prosperity can only happen if politicians work across the aisle and hold the Biden administration accountable. The American people cannot continue to be the pawns in Biden’s EO game
Lets be clear here. The owners of the WSJ and many other publications wanted President Trump gone. They wanted a “return to normal” before Trump was sworn in as President. They criticized Trump’s every policy, even though those policies were extremely beneficial to the economy and to most Americans. He wasn’t part of the “old boys club” of business as usual. Unemployment was at record lows in all categories across the board. We became energy independent and an actual energy exporter as well. Four peace treaties were signed in the Middle East and we entered no new wars. We fixed a lot of the deficiencies with our trade agreements around the world, so the United States stopped getting the short end of the stick. We stopped being “soft touch America willing to pay for everybody else” and demanded fair deals. So many positive things, yet most of the so-called news organizations wanted a “return to normal”.
Well guess what, they got their “return to normal”! Before Trump we had Obama, who “used a phone and a pen” an awful lot over his 8 years in office to destroy jobs, weaken our economy, signed terrible foreign agreements and so on. Regulations and tax increases were popping up almost every other day and the cost to operate a business in the United States became less and less profitable. So the mass exodus of companies and jobs to China and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, that started in earnest under Bill Clinton and then G.W. Bush, went into over-drive under Obama.
Now Biden, surrounded by a legion of former Obama era cronies, is busy undoing as much of President Trump’s positive policies as he can by executive orders. His handlers want to get the country back on the downward economic track to socialism as fast as possible. Next up will come the legislation from a Democrat controlled Congress to handle what EO’s can’t. So excuse me for not buying all this sudden concern for the country from the very same people in the media that were pushing for this “return to normal” from Day One of Trump’s Presidency. You got EXACTLY what you wanted. We are returning to life under Obama’s third term. Whether it’s puppet Biden or puppet Harris, the policies and results will be the same.
I’m glad he’s using lots of executive orders. They can be broken very quickly by the next common sense conservative that’s elected. He actually had enough votes in senate and house to pass LAWS which are hard to break. So, I for one, am very glad he’s using executive orders.