During 2020 with COVID-19 infections reportedly at their peak and with major shutdowns of businesses wrecking lives and America’s economy, consumers were still getting goods, and transportation was pretty much humming along fine considering the challenges.
As of mere days ago, we have well over 100 cargo carriers sitting in waters around the country unable to unload with a sudden shortage of dock workers.
Even if they could, there is a shortage of truck drivers to deliver the goods to stock stores around the country.
Fresh produce is rotting, repairs are stalled on all kinds of appliances, cars and equipment waiting for the smallest of parts, and new appliances are sitting while new homes await to be completed. Stores can’t sell what’s not there and their revenue is stagnant.
The resulting negative effects on the commerce stream is a very long list.
Asking what’s changed is rhetorical. The answer is simple and clear.
In the immediate it’s called the Biden-Pelosi-Schumer $3.5 trillion spend-and-tax bill.
Overall, it’s closer to a total in $10 trillion of spend-and-tax bills.
The insatiable group received $1.2 trillion earlier in the year. By the way, all of that money has not been spent. Ignoring that, another $1.2 trillion is on the table and that’s being held up by Democrats because they want a rubber stamp on another $3.5 trillion all in the name of “infrastructure.”
In other words, the aforementioned is as convenient for garnering trillions of dollars from taxpayers to spend by reckless politicians as COVID-19 was to oust a successful president and to wreck America.
At the time a deal was reached on the now-withheld $1.2 trillion, Republicans caved to the amount while pointing out that less than $600 billion was actual, authentic infrastructure like highways, bridges, etc.
Irrespective of an extra $600 billion that’s not infrastructure, the unabashed demands for another $3.5 trillion is prodigious and staggering.
Interviews with Joe Biden’s Labor Secretary Martin Walsh and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg were unsatisfactory and feeble. Calling them lackluster would be generous.
Walsh exhibited a deer-in-the-headlights facial expression and not a clue as to what it would take to reverse the current labor crisis in this country. He and Buttigieg were twins in parroting how the $3.5 trillion spend-and-tax must happen.
No plan, no forethought, no strategy; just dump the money into the system and all will be well.
Labor and transportation are just two of the crises in America under Joe Biden’s reign.
America is suffering crises with the southern border of the U.S., illegal immigration, inflation, housing, taxes, economy, education, foreign policy, Afghanistan withdrawal, military deaths (just ask their families); remaining hostages, the “pandemic” with the constant mixed, ever-changing and hypocritical messages, mandates, the threats to everyday citizens regarding our privacy, far-reaching government employees and worse is their ceding (prior non-existent) powers to un-elected people who reach into our daily lives and impose edicts on us, citizenship of anyone and anything that is not in lock-step with the leftists’ orders.
There are burgeoning crises awaiting us as long as this country is under the present regime.
One is a military crisis. Our military been neutered by the stripping of honorable, strong leaders.
To wit, Gen. Mark Milley and the others who think America’s threat is white rage, white supremacy and/or global warming.
Never before have so many people asked, “Who’s running the country?”
Who ever thought such a question would even be in anyone’s mind? Until now, but for the few moments of Joe Biden’s intransigence when he listens to no one, and acts impulsively and witlessly, as in the Afghanistan crisis.
One only has to watch his interviews, like the disaster with Don Lemon in July; or anytime he goes off script to see his failing mind on display.
It is stunning that not one journalist has asked President Biden who he is referencing when he repeatedly makes statements like, “I’m going to get into trouble if I answer any questions,” or “they told me not to take any questions,” or, “they gave me a list, as always, on who (which reporter) to call on.”
He has made like-kind statements often, yet the question of who is “they” has never arisen.
The mainstream media has been short on veritable journalists for so long, we’ve drifted into thinking that reporting is “news” when it’s thoroughly biased opinion.
Rarely are both sides set forth and topics are selective and intentionally chosen — including what not to report.
Hunter Biden’s laptop and art dealings along with, the Biden family’s questionable ties to foreign nations, ties to questionable people such as Whitey Bulger’s family, “deals” and revenue streaming therefrom, all come to mind.
President Biden is on the same level as many Americans when it comes to surprise. He was surprised that Kabul fell so quickly to terrorists (irrespective of telling us that he considered every option and consequence when making his decision).
Many of us are equally surprised as we never thought one man and his administration could destroy a successful republic and great country in a short eight months of time.
Betty Arenson is a Santa Clarita resident. “Right Here, Right Now” appears Saturdays and rotates among local Republicans.