Tag Archives: political parties

Contempt

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President Joe Biden, through his Press Secretary Jen Psaki, said he’s just too busy to talk to the press (and, I add, to talk to us ordinary Americans). On the matter of holding a press conference,

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Biden is too busy with the COVID crisis, but it may happen by the end of March.

Recall that Biden also promised he’d talk to Congress (and through press broadcast of that to us) in early February—no wait, by mid- to late-February. Both of those promises have been reneged on.

Aside from that, Biden is claiming he’s too busy to find 40 minutes to talk to the press? Or, as his habit has been, he’s too busy to find 10 minutes to answer 5 carefully selected questions, for which he has the answers already scripted by his writers?

My credulity meter is pegged.

And this from Biden, also through his Press Secretary:

But this president came in during a historic crisis, two historic crises. A pandemic like the country had not seen in decades and decades, and an economic downturn that left 10 million people out of work.

A pandemic that already was coming under control because of a multiplicity of vaccines developed and for which distribution had begun under the prior administration. A pandemic whose “out-of-control” status already was an open question as actual hospitalization and mortality rate data started flowing in.

An economic downturn that already had been reversed months before Biden took office, and was in full swing when he was sworn in. A recovery sparked and facilitated by Republican-run States either not shutting down their economies in the blind panic to which Progressive-Democrat-run States had succumbed or starting to reopen their economies far sooner than those panic-riddled States.  (Panic-riddled—alternatively, those Progressive-Democrats were/are executing on their Party mantra of never letting a crisis go to waste as they moved to use the Wuhan Virus situation to accrete political power to Party and to them personally.)

Millions of Americans still out of work—mostly in those Progressive-Democrat-run States, whose authorities refuse to reopen their economies so Americans can go back to work.

Four expressions of contempt in one tweet and one short sentence. This is just Biden, typical of Progressive-Democrats, insulting our intelligence again.

Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

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Here’s a partial list of what’s in the Progressive-Democrats’ Wuhan Virus “Relief” bill, just passed in the Senate and sent to the House for its concurrence.

A bill, incidentally, passed on strict party lines, after Senator Joe Manchin (D, WV) showed his word to be worthless after he swore up and down that he’d not support any bill that didn’t have support from “his Republican friends,” and then voted for its passage.

  • $350 billion for state and local governments—never minding that many States, such as California, Virginia, Arizona, and Colorado, had revenue increases over 2019
  • Over $128 billion for schools—never minding that 95% of that won’t be paid out until after 2021
  • $570 million—$280 per day(!), up to $21,000—for Federal employees to take up to 15 weeks off from work
  • $45 billion for Obamacare
  • $300 per week in enhanced unemployment, the first $10,200 would be tax-free to households with incomes under $150,000—even though unemployment benefits, as replacement income, heretofore was taxable as that income
  • $4 billion for agriculture, including $1 billion for, among other things, “socially disadvantaged” farmers getting their loans forgiven up to 120% of their loan. Never minding the intrinsically racist and sexist nature of that, since non-disadvantaged farmers don’t get a penny of loan forgiveness, at all, and that the 20% excess “forgiveness” is naked “reparation”
  • $50 million in “environmental justice” grants
  • $91 million in “outreach to student loan borrowers
  • $270 million for the National Endowments of the Arts and Humanities
  • $200 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services
  • $10 million for the “preservation and maintenance of Native American languages”

The sad thing—or would be sad were it not for its dishonesty—is that some of these inclusions would be worthy of straightforward debate on their merits, did the Progressive-Democrats have the integrity to propose them separately and on those inclusions’ merits.

That partial list, by itself, works out to $1 trillion of money wholly irrelevant to (unneeded, with a recovering economy) Wuhan Virus “relief,” money that would be better spent on Biden’s—and Trump’s—vaunted infrastructure repair and buildout.

Or on making permanent the personal income tax rate reductions from the Trump tax reform.

Or in addition to the miserly $1,400 “stimulus” payments, make it $3,000 in our pocket direct payment checks.

We need to remember this in 2022.

Not a Blow

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President Joe Biden has lost his nominee for OMB Director, Neera Tanden.

I have accepted Neera Tanden’s request to withdraw her name from nomination for Director of the Office of Management and Budget,” the president said in the statement. “I have the utmost respect for her record of accomplishment, her experience and her counsel, and I look forward to having her serve in a role in my Administration. She will bring valuable perspective and insight to our work.

Just the News presents this as some sort of blow to Biden and his program, but they’re not alone in that assessment. Of course, it’s no such thing.

Tanden, with her blatantly racist attitude, exemplified by her history of tweeting (which she tried to erase, following the Left’s dishonest practice of trying to rewrite history by deleting uncomfortable posts, tweets, articles) was nothing more than a grape cynically offered up by Biden to let the opposing party claim a victory in the Nomination Confirmation Games.

Tanden was never a serious offering—which is as grave an insult to Tanden, unless she was a willing player in the charade, as she and her nomination were to honest Americans.

Yes, It Is

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But for reasons different from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘ (D, NY). Or it would be, if Ocasio-Cortez hadn’t slept through so many of her economics classes.

[Congresswoman] Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez [D, NY] called the debate over raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour “utterly embarrassing” and reiterated her push for the Biden administration to override the Senate parliamentarian and include a pay floor increase in the Democrats’ coronavirus relief package.

It is embarrassing that a Boston University cum laude BA in economics could have so little understanding of basic economics. It is embarrassing, too, that so many grown adults alongside her in Congress could have so little understanding of basic economics.

It is well-known that the more something costs, the less of it that will be bought or otherwise acquired—or even sought after. Of course, that applies to labor as well as to the goods and services that labor produces.

It is well-known that if the output of labor isn’t worth the cost, the laborer won’t be hired in the first place.

It is well-known that minimum wage jobs—the jobs allegedly targeted by the Progressive-Democrats’ drive for $15/hr—are low/no skill jobs.

It is well-known that the primary workers in those low-no skill jobs are teenagers trying to earn some summer money for a number of reasons, earning some college money; existing college students looking to earn money for their current expenses; first-time workers looking to gain work experience and resume material; single parents looking to plus up their family’s income; two-parent families with one or both parents looking to plus up their family’s savings. Very few of these minimum wage jobs are the sole job held by the worker.

From that, it should be easy to understand that the ones who will be hurt the most by a mandated minimum wage increase will be precisely those folks, as they’re the ones who will be priced out of their jobs, and the small businesses who can’t afford to pay that much in wages.

It’s also lost on the Progressive-Democrats, or they simply don’t care, that the ones most hurt by such a move are minority low-skill workers and the minority-owned or -operated small businesses that can’t afford the labor cost.

We even have empirical evidence of the failure of such a minimum wage: in Seattle, where employment has fallen off in the aftermath of that city’s mandated wage increase.

Yet the Progressive-Democrats push on, with their eyes wide shut.

Not Serious

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The Wall Street Journal claims pressure is growing on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) to resign over allegations of his sexual harassment.

Gov Andrew Cuomo Faces Growing Calls From New York Democrats to Resign

goes the headline. And

US Congresswoman Kathleen Rice, of Long Island, became one of the highest-profile New York Democrats to call for Mr Cuomo to step down.

I’m having trouble seeing the pressure. So far, all that’s going on is a lot of loud chit-chat.

There are two ways to apply pressure in this context. One is for the State’s legislature to block Cuomo’s agenda until he quits or his term expires. “He can’t govern” goes one articulation of this. That, though, would redound to the legislators as much as it would to Cuomo.

The other way is to actually impeach Cuomo, convict him at trial, and thereby eject him from office.

But we have this:

Six Democratic state lawmakers who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America said Tuesday that they supported impeachment. In New York, impeachment articles must be approved by the state Assembly and a trial is conducted before members of the state Senate as well as judges of the state’s Court of Appeals. Democrats have a two-third majority in both the state Assembly and Senate. Mr. Cuomo has appointed all seven judges of the Court of Appeals.

OK. With numbers like that, what are those six legislators actually doing about impeaching and trying Cuomo?

…

Porch dog yapping. Not applying pressure. Not actually bringing articles of impeachment to the Assembly floor for up-or-down action. Absent that, there is no trial.

There’re just little, yippy dogs barking.