If you are like me and have been paying attention to the news lately, you have probably realized that President Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats have been having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day – over and over for the last eight months. It seems like almost every week, there is a new crisis facing Americans, and the Biden administration is running back and forth, trying to put out one dumpster fire after another. The chaos we are witnessing today is mainly driven by the President’s own policies, his administration’s inability to understand what’s going on around them, and his reactionary approach to governing. Meanwhile, the President’s marquee legislative proposal, the “Build Back Better” plan, has been whittled down and is now stalled in Congress. So what can Democrats run on in November?
The latest crisis facing Americans came over the last few weeks as mothers across the country scramble to find baby formula. The shutdown of a tainted manufacturing plant in Michigan contributed to the shortage, and labor shortages and supply chain bottlenecks coupled with a small, tightly regulated industry drove the crisis. President Biden and his team were well aware of the hallmarks of the crisis in the making and, like the desperate mothers, found themselves scrambling to import baby formula from Europe and Australia.
The heaviest albatross around the Democrats’ neck is 41-year high inflation which clocked in at 8.5% year-over-year in March. With that comes record highs across the board, such as groceries costing 10.8% more than one year ago and eating out costing 7.2% more. As of this writing, the national price of gasoline is $4.715 according to AAA, which is up 52% from last year, and 100% (doubling) since January 20, 2021 – when Biden took office — the average price for a gallon of gas nationwide was approximately $2.39. According to JP Morgan analysts, gas prices are expected to hit $6 a gallon by August if trends continue.
Even members of his own party are publicly criticizing him for his weak approach to inflation. Progressive Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times stating, “I support the president’s efforts, but we need a bolder vision and faster action. We need an all-out mobilization, not just a few ad hoc initiatives reacting to headlines.”
Khanna’s remarks came on the heels of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s comments when she admitted, “I was wrong about the path inflation would take.” Biden, Yellen, and the gang have been wrong about a lot of things, and their lack of vision and foresight compounded with reckless spending and government handouts is hurting real Americans.
In addition to a baby formula shortage and record-high inflation, Democratic policies have created more problems for Americans than they were meant to solve.
President Biden and Washington Democrats have another record high on their watch: illegal border crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border. In 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol recorded over one million encounters.
Given all of the above, it’s no wonder that President Biden’s latest poll numbers have also hit a record low. According to an Ipsos poll conducted from May 23rd to the 24th, 2022, President Biden’s approval rating sits at 36%, with 59% disapproving of the President’s performance. The same poll found 36% of Americans ranking “economy, unemployment, and jobs” as the most important problem facing America.
With numbers like that, and a Congress that seems incapable of passing anything but spending bills like more unneeded COVID funding and five Ukraine aid bills in the last two months, the Congressional window is closing to pass major legislation, though Biden’s top aides are working overtime to reach a deal with Senators Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Kirsten Sinema (D-AZ) on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2023 budget reconciliation bill that would raise taxes, spend more on climate change programs, and balloon the IRS budget. So far they have nothing to show.
Aside from their “Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act,” which mostly renewed existing funding and likely helped doom Biden’s hopes for a larger liberal wish-list bill, Democrats on the ballot in November don’t have much to campaign on – actually, little to nothing, except causing harm to Americans — other than how they would do things differently than their party’s standard bearer.
Bob Carlstrom is President of AMAC Action