The opinion of this writer is not the opinion or view of the Ridgeview News. It is however a free country and freedom of speech is honored in this place. – Shari Johnson, Publisher
I had a disturbing conversation on Facebook last week. (I know – what’s new?) A woman said her 401(k) was in tatters because of Biden. I said that unless she had picked the worst investments ever, it should be up because all three major stock indexes hit records last week. She said, you are a fool if you believe mainstream media – they’re just saying that to make Biden look good. I said check the Wall Street Journal, owned by Rupert Murdoch who also owns Fox News, to see that these are real numbers and real records. And she said, “I don’t care.” And signed off.
“I don’t care” about reality, about the good economy, or about anything good President Biden’s administration might be doing. I want to disbelieve and I prefer to disparage. How much is “I don’t care,” or is it “I don’t know,” or worst “I don’t care to know?”
In a climate of such negativity, denialism, conspiracy theories, and straight-out lies, it’s hard to put forward a bit of good news and be heard. I have an incomplete list of things that are going well in America under the Biden administration that people don’t seem to care to know.
I can see why someone could choose not to care about the record stock markets. The Dow closed 10,000 points higher than the record it hit in November 2020 while Trump was still president, but rich people own a lot more stocks than working class people so the markets, while one indicator of the health of economy, may seem distant from a lot of folks’ reality.
But do people really not care about low unemployment, whichhas been below 4% for 27 months? Low unemployment means the economy is growing, People have jobs, they’re earning and spending, and because of low unemployment, average wages are rising due to the reduced labor supply.
“Help Wanted” signs are everywhere. Even in West Virginia13,885 new businesses were started in 2023. This is a spillover effect of the national economy.
Do people really not care that 15 million jobs have been created since Biden has been president? That is more jobs created in a single term than any president in history. Job creation under Biden has been astounding, partly due to the American Rescue Plan, the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief measures passed by the Democratic House and Senate in March 2021. No Republicans voted for the bill.
Everyone complains about the cost of their groceries. But do people really not care that inflation is way down from its 8% peak in July 2022? It’s now at 3.4%.
More likely, people just don’t know that corporate greed was responsible for half of US inflation in 2023.
Corporations are keeping prices high and increasing prices even though their costs have fallen. Pepsi and Coke both raised prices last year because, they said, their products were so “popular.” Another corporate price-gouging ploy isshrinkflation. I know you’ve seen this – the packages are the same size, but there’s more air and less product, all for the same high price.
Biden is blamed for inflation, corporations enjoy record profits that increase year over year, and Trump promises to continue and improve on his corporate tax relief so they can keep on gouging the consumer. Will a majority not care to know?
Don’t people care about infrastructure? The Trump joke was that every week was “infrastructure week” and nothing was built. Under Biden, the $1.2 trillion investment in roads, waterlines, broadband networks, airports, and more means that more than 56,000 projects are underway now in all 50 states: 9400 bridges, 450 ports, more than 300 airports are being built or improved. West Virginia receives $3.8 billion of the infrastructure money over 5 years.
Do people not know or not care that the $50 billion spent by the Biden government to subsidize construction of new microchip facilities in the US has sparked $825 billion in private investment to build these factories? Micron, for example, just announced spending $125 billion in NY and ID for 2 “fabs” – fabrication facilities that alone will produce 70,000 jobs.
Do people not care that Joe Biden stood on the picket line with the United Autoworkers supporting unions and union workers? Trump went to a non-union factory and asked for votes for himself.
Don’t people care about fighting climate change and ramping up renewable energy growth? Thanks to the Biden administration, electricity generation from renewable energy sources – wind, solar, and hydropower – surpassed coal-fired generation for the first time in 2022. Trump promised Big Oil execs that if they bribe him with $1 billion, he will single-handedly end all Biden administration climate change laws and regulations.
Do people not know or not care that immigrant workers will add an extra $7 trillion to the U.S. economy within the next decade and an extra $1 trillion in federal tax revenue? Could they possible prefer Trump’s plan to round up 10 million immigrants, put them in camps, deport them, and send the economy into a tailspin?
Don’t people care that under Biden marijuana is reclassified as a Schedule III drug, a historic shift that recognizes its medical uses and more accurately reflects any dangers? That capping insulin prices at $35/month for Medicare recipients led to the three major insulin suppliers voluntarily matching that cap? That the first over-the-counter birth control pill is now available, so women do not have to schedule and pay for a doctor’s appointment and get a prescription for birth control?
The right wing media chooses not to report any such good news. The mainstream media seems to prefer portraying Trump as an endlessly entertaining drama – what outrageous thing will he do next? – while minimizing or ignoring the threats. MeanwhileBiden’s accomplishments for all of us are apparently too boring, just everyday governing, nothing to see here, where’s the fun?
It falls to us who do care to find ways to get past “I don’t care” and “I’m not listening.” The Biden campaign can’t do it alone. It has to come from the grass roots because we care enough to do the hard work.
Vote Biden/Harris and give them a Democratic Senate and House so they can keep up the good steady work of creating a strong economy even for those who don’t care.
“Do people really not care that 15 million jobs have been created since Biden has been president”? This is an absolute lie, and Deirdre knows it. All but 4,861,000 job increases under Biden were simply jobs returning after the Covid-19 Pandemic ended. It took until July 2022, for jobs to reach pre-pandemic levels. The only jobs “created” by the Biden Administration were those added after employment reached pre-pandemic levels. NO, Joe Biden has not created 15 million jobs, but rather only 4,861,000. Oh well, a lie is a lie is a lie . . . This entire diatribe is full of lies just like this one. The readers are much smarter than the writer believes us to be. The rantings of a far-left ideologue are simply full of sound and fury, amounting to nothing.
Roger, do not call people liars. It’s a terrible argument that reflects badly on you. Of course, it’s not a lie that under Joe Biden, the country has created 15 million jobs. When Donald Trump lost 9 million jobs, it wasn’t that someone put them in a sack and forgot where they put it. And later Biden found the Trump jobs. Those 9 million jobs were gone, people had no work, businesses closed. When the Biden administration brought the economic conditions back and jobs began being created again, some may have been the same business, same people, but even so it’s not like that was a “Trump job” that Biden brought back. All 15 million jobs were created when Biden was president. 9 million were lost under Trump, 15 million created under Biden. No lie.
GOVERNMENT IS THE SOURCE OF INFLATION!! GOVERNMENT IS STEALING OUR WEALTH AND PROSPERITY!!! WHAT AN IDIOT YOU ARE Diedre!!! PLEASE STOP ACCEPTING EDITORIALS FROM IDIOTS. If you want to know what is really happening; ask me.
Thank you for the truth .
MANY REMEMBER SOLID ECONOMY UNDER TRUMP, BUT HIS RECORD ALSO FULL OF HYPE, DEBT
Numbers show that the economy during Donald Trump’s presidency has never lived up to his own hype
By JOSH BOAK
Associated Press
May 20, 2024
Economic numbers expose a far more complicated reality during Trump’s time in the White House. His tax cuts never delivered the promised growth. His budget deficits surged and then stayed relatively high under Biden. His tariffs and trade deals never brought back all of the lost factory jobs.
And there was the pandemic, an event that caused historic job losses for which Trump accepts no responsibility as well as low inflation — for which Trump takes full credit.
If anything, the economy during Trump’s presidency never lived up to his own hype.
Trump assured the public in 2017 that the U.S. economy with his tax cuts would grow at “3%,” but he added, “I think it could go to 4, 5, and maybe even 6%, ultimately.”
If the 2020 pandemic is excluded, growth after inflation averaged 2.67% under Trump, according to figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Include the pandemic-induced recession and that average drops to an anemic 1.45%.
By contrast, growth during the second term of then-President Barack Obama averaged 2.33%. So far under Biden, annual growth is averaging 3.4%.
Trump also assured the public that his tax cuts would pay for themselves because of stronger growth. The cuts were broad but disproportionately favored corporations and those with extreme wealth.
The tax cuts signed into law in 2017 never fulfilled Trump’s promises on deficit reduction.
According to the Office of Management and Budget, the deficit worsened to $779 billion in 2018. The Congressional Budget Office had forecasted a deficit of $563 billion before the tax cuts, meaning the tax cuts increased borrowing by $216 billion that first year. In 2019, the deficit rose to $984 billion, nearly $300 billion more than what the CBO had forecast.
Then the pandemic happened and with a flurry of government aid, the resulting deficit topped $3.1 trillion. That borrowing enabled the government to make direct payments to individuals and small businesses as the economy was in lockdown, often increasing bank accounts and making many feel better off even though the economy was in a recession.
Deficits have also run high under Biden, as he signed into law a third round of pandemic aid and other initiatives to address climate change, build infrastructure and invest in U.S. manufacturing. His budget deficits: $2.8 trillion (2021), $1.38 trillion (2022) and $1.7 trillion (2023).
The CBO estimated in a report issued Wednesday that the extension of parts of Trump’s tax cuts set to expire after 2025 would add another $4.6 trillion to the national debt through the year 2034.
Inflation was much lower under Trump, never topping an annual rate of 2.4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The annual rate reached as high as 8% in 2022 under Biden and is currently at 3.4%.
There were three big reasons why inflation was low during Trump’s presidency: the legacy of the 2008 financial crisis, Federal Reserve actions and the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump entered the White House with inflation already low, largely because of the slow recovery from the Great Recession, when financial markets collapsed and millions of people lost their homes to foreclosure.
The inflation rate barely averaged more than 1% during Obama’s second term as the Fed struggled to push up growth. Still, the economy was expanding without overheating.
But in the first three years of Trump’s presidency, inflation averaged 2.1%, roughly close to the Fed’s target. Still, the Fed began to hike its own benchmark rate to keep inflation low at the central bank’s own 2% target. Trump repeatedly criticized the Fed because he wanted to juice growth despite the risks of higher prices.
Then the pandemic hit.
Inflation sank and the Fed slashed rates to sustain the economy during lockdowns.
When Trump celebrates historically low mortgage rates, he’s doing so because the economy was weakened by the pandemic. Similarly, gasoline prices fell below an average of $2 a gallon because no one was driving in April 2020 as the pandemic spread.
The United States lost 2.7 million jobs during Trump’s presidency, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. If the pandemic months are excluded, he added 6.7 million jobs.
By contrast, 15.4 million jobs were added during Biden’s presidency. That’s 5.1 million more jobs than what the CBO forecasted he would add before his coronavirus relief and other policies became law — a sign of how much he boosted the labor market.
Both candidates have repeatedly promised to bring back factory jobs. Between 2017 and the middle of 2019, Trump added 461,000 manufacturing jobs. But the gains began to stall and then turned into layoffs during the pandemic, with the Republican posting a loss of 178,000 jobs.
So far, the U.S. economy has added 773,000 manufacturing jobs during Biden’s presidency.