At this point in time, the economy is an issue that seems to favor the Republicans over the Democrats. That is, it seems that the majority of voters think that the Republicans would do a better job at handling this issue than the Democrats. In many ways, our economy is doing well under Biden. However, inflation is killing us. Unfortunately, a number of the major causes of our inflation problem are beyond Biden’s control; e.g., the global supply chain problems which are caused by the Covid pandemic; and Putin’s cruel and unnecessary war on Ukraine. Unfortunately for our nation, the Republicans in our government (AKA, the Radical Right Republicans (the RRRs); AKA, the Anti-Democracy MAGA-Republicans) are better at selling lies, than the Democrats are at selling the truth. As a result, we are bombarded with RRR disinformation about our economy, and we hear little from the Democrats to counter that disinformation. • Note: > When Trump took office, he inherited a decent economy from Obama and Biden. > When Biden took office, he inherited an economic mess from Trump (i.e., the worse economic mess since the Great Depression). And on top of that, Biden inherited a Covid mess from Trump (e.g., Covid was running rampant, and there were shortages of Covid testing supplies and shortages of medical equipment). Both of these messes were the result of Trump’s gross mismanagement of our Covid crisis; mismanagement that was fully supported by the RRRs. > When Biden took over: * He, with help from the Democrats, immediately took steps to clean-up Trump’s Covid mess (e.g., he got shots into our arms; unlike Trump who told us that we were on our own). And he eventually got Trump’s Covid mess under control. * And then he, with help from the Democrats, immediately took steps to clean-up Trump’s economic mess (e.g., he signed the American Rescue Plan, Covid relief laws, the CHIPS Act, and the Infrastructure Law). And he eventually got Trump’s economic mess under control. ▪ The goals of the Infrastructure Law include: * No more lead water pipes that poison people; more high-speed internet access; better roads and bridges; investing in public transit; upgrading airports and ports; investing in passenger rail; upgrading power infrastructure; cleaning-up legacy pollution sites; and protecting our infrastructure against extreme weather events and cyber-attacks. * And to add an average of 1.5 million jobs per year for the next ten years. ▪ The goals of the CHIPS Act include: * To encourage the construction of microprocessor manufacturing facilities in the US, and thus reduce our reliance on overseas chip supply chains. * And to add an average of 200,000 jobs per year. > Here are some numbers: * The unemployment rate fell from 6.4% when Biden took office to 3.5% in September of 2022. That September rate is where the rate was before the Covid pandemic. * During Trump’s first year in office, 2 million jobs were created. During Biden’s first year in office, 6.6 million jobs were created (this is a record). * During Biden’s first year in office, the deficit was reduced by over $1.3 trillion (this is a record). Trump left office with the largest peacetime deficit in American history (obviously, this is also a record). > If the RRRs take over our Congress, they want to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block. This will help to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy, but it could make life very difficult for millions of seniors. ▪ And the RRRs want to weaponize the debt limit in order to force cuts to those programs. That is, the Radical Right Republicans want to screw millions of American seniors, OR cause a catastrophic economic mess for our nation by refusing to increase the debt limit. (After declaring war on gays, women, and our democracy, the Radical Right Republicans are now declaring war on seniors and our economy. Who’s next? Mickey Mouse? Oh, that’s right. That goofy governor in Florida did declare war on Mickey.) • In conclusion: The Democrats really need to improve their messaging strategy in order to combat the Radical Right Republican’s success at selling lies. And they should have been doing that many months ago.
