President Joe Biden entered office poised to oversee a record recovery and a return to the booming economy and all-round stability of pre-pandemic life. Instead, hes turned out to be a master of disaster, with self-inflicted crises across the board threatening to set America back to the 1970s with that eras infamous stagflation as well as a foreign policy in flames.
When Biden took office in January, the nation was on the mend from a post-holiday surge in COVID cases and seeing a light at the end of the tunnel with the vaccines produced at unprecedented speed and nearly a million jabs a day going into American arms. With the unemployment rate 3.5 percent at a five-decade low in February 2020, Biden inherited a strong pre-pandemic economy that was already bouncing back strong as the pandemic and lockdowns began to end.
President Donald Trump had also done him a favor at the southern border, getting what was once a real crisis under control by prioritizing strong border security, negotiating a Remain in Mexico policy that saw asylum-seekers await the conclusion of their cases outside the country and instituting a public-health order that kept migrants out while we focused on eradicating the virus.
Biden even looked set to negotiate more peace deals in the Middle East, building on Trumps Abraham Accords, the first deals in decades between Arab nations and Israel.
But barely four months into his presidency, its disaster after disaster as Biden wastes every opportunity his predecessor left him.
US consumer confidence fell unexpectedly this month as rising prices, a hiring slowdown and energy uncertainty hit hard. On Friday, the University of Michigan said its Index of Consumer Sentiment declined to 82.8, from 88.3 in April. Economists had predicted it would rise to 90.4.
It wasnt the first disappointment for prognosticators this month. Economists expected the country to tack on 1 million jobs in April after seeing gains of 770,000 in March. Instead, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported just 266,000, as the unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent.
And then it announced that consumer prices rose 4.2 percent year-over-year in April far worse than economists had predicted. It was the largest such jump since September 2008, when the financial crisis was at its height. Oh, and core inflation rose 0.8 percent from March to April, the biggest rise in nearly four decades.
You can thank Bidens focus on expanding government at the expense of everyone else. Democrats (alone) passed his $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill which had little to do with either in March, as things were finally picking up. Throwing money into the economy without much consideration of its necessity directly led to the inflation were seeing now, with the money supply up by 25 percent over last year.
That relief bill also extended the $300 weekly federal unemployment supplement to Sept. 6, meaning nearly half of people getting checks make more by staying home than going back to work. Employers coast to coast have cited it as a reason theyre having trouble hiring.
Biden claims the jobs numbers show his two other big proposals ($5 trillion total for infrastructure and families) are desperately needed, but that medicine would mean more disasters, not least because theyre (partly) paid for via huge tax hikes on investments and business.
Hes also adding fear and gloom now, by refusing to rule out making his planned tax hikes retroactive.
Gas prices were already on the rise under Biden before the cyberattack on the Colonial Pipeline led to long lines at the pump. It now costs $1.05 more per gallon than it did a year ago. With Biden closing the Keystone XL Pipeline on his first day in office and generally vowing to wage war on all fossil fuels, its no wonder theres uncertainty and higher prices.
Nowhere is the self-inflicted nature of Bidens disasters more plain than on the border. He put a moratorium on deportations his first day in office and ended the Remain in Mexico program as well as all construction on any border barriers. Border apprehensions were at a 20-year high last month, but deportations were at a record monthly low.
And the feds have a record number of unaccompanied minors in custody around 22,000 because Biden ordered the public-health rule keeping migrants out to be lifted for solo kids.
Meanwhile, Hamas and its allies have gone on the attack against Israel, leaving it no choice but to defend itself. As Jonathan Schanzer notes, the Biden teams drive to restore the Iran nuclear deal plainly inspired Tehrans terrorist clients to start firing, even as it makes Israel less willing to listen to Washingtons efforts to broker a ceasefire.
Its stunning how much success Biden has managed to reverse in not even four months. With long lines at the pump, slowing growth and rising inflation, its looking like the Jimmy Carter era except that it took Carter years to produce the disasters that this president has fostered in scant months.