By Congressman Tom Cole
Along the campaign trail and on his inauguration day, President Joe Biden promised leadership to unify the country and rebuild our economy. Unfortunately, his partisan policies and unilateral actions have been far from unifying and have instead sparked crises both at home and abroad.
Before the pandemic struck, America had the best economy in the world with record low unemployment in communities across the country. This was a direct result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted by Republicans in 2017. Thanks to the law’s pro-growth policies, all Americans were getting to keep more of their paychecks. In addition, new jobs were being created thanks to incentives for companies to expand and set up shop in the United States.
Earlier this year, President Biden and Democrats passed a $1.9 trillion liberal wish list masked as a coronavirus relief bill through the budget reconciliation process. In fact, more than 90 percent of this partisan and liberal package had nothing at all to do with the pandemic. In this bill included irresponsible spending such as a federal bailout of certain pension funds and providing bloated contributions to Democrat-run state and local governments. Indeed, this bill was just the beginning of our nation’s economic crisis that we are now facing.
Additionally, rather than encouraging people to get back to work and putting in motion policies to get our economy back on track, President Biden and Democrats have created incentives for many American workers to stay at home on unemployment. Meanwhile, increased taxes on businesses and corporations are again forcing them to move overseas, rewarding our adversaries like Communist China.
While President Biden promised not to raise taxes on Americans making less than $400,000 a year, Democrats in Congress are currently working to advance legislation that reflects his proposed $3.5 trillion wish list of socialist-style policies. However, the only way this budget will come even close to being paid for is by raising the taxes on 90 percent of Americans. Indeed, this inflation bomb will continue to raise prices for Americans, another form of taxation. With inflation being the highest it has been since 1981, Americans cannot afford more big-government spending.
The president also promised to reform our country’s immigration system and make the situation at the southern border “better, not worse.” The truth is that he has not delivered. In fact, due in part to his open border policies, we have the biggest national security, public health and humanitarian crisis at our southern border that we have ever seen. In August alone, there were 103,123 single adult apprehensions. This staggering number accounts for nearly half of all 208,887 border encounters for the entire month. Taking all these numbers into account, illegal entries into the country increased by 317 percent between August of 2020 and August of 2021. These policies are draining the resources of Customs and Border Protection and local law enforcement, disrupting local communities across the nation and a clear example of the failed policies of President Biden.
Finally, since President Biden was sworn into office, he has signed a record-number of executive orders, governing by use of pen instead of in collaboration with Congress. And because of this attempt to dismantle existing policy on energy development and climate, foreign relations and immigration, we have seen skyrocketing utility and gas prices, a completely botched withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that resulted in the tragic death of 13 U.S. service members and a reemerging Taliban and an overrun southern border. Indeed, this type of governing will only sow greater division within our country rather than pave the way for the “unity” President Biden promised to foster for the American people.
President Biden promised to be a president for all Americans and to work with Republicans and Democrats alike to solve the nation’s problems. Sadly, his presidency thus far has been marked by unilateral decisions and broken promises to the American people.
