The More Things Change Whatever

As I write this 'end of the year/beginning of the year' column, please remember President Biden still had one month left in his term at this time last year.

Frankly, it's too daunting to think about 'Bidenomics' and all the damaging policies Biden and his administration perpetrated on the American people. He began raising inflation to a 40-year high during his first five months in office. The cumulative inflation rate under Biden was approximately 21%, with a peak of 9.1% in June 2022.

What about the 'unprecedented undocumented' rate of immigration from his first week in office until the bitter end in January 2025? Remember the drugs and human trafficking that rose precipitously throughout his reign? The media faithfully denied any problems with immigrants, drugs or human trafficking. Large numbers of Americans polled showed no worries about these issues.

Sometimes we need to remember how bad it was then to appreciate how far we've come in eleven months under Trump 2.0. How does one turn around a national cumulative inflation rate of more than 20% back to under 3% in ten months? One certainly doesn't do it with Bidenomics!

Yet all we've heard from the media since last January is how bad President Trump has made the economy. Nowadays democrats and their cousins in the media are screaming about soaring healthcare costs. You may remember this issue arising 20-something years ago when a young senator from Illinois said he could fix that. In January 2007 Senator Joe Biden described this newbie as 'articulate and bright and clean' and a nice-looking... A year later Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama introduced Senator Joe Biden as his running mate in the 2008 race. One has to wonder how alliances are made in Washington.

How did Obama-care help American consumers? A summary of reports in the media and from the White House in 2010 included key promises of lowering health care costs, allowing individuals to keep their existing health plans and doctors, and expanding coverage to millions of uninsured Americans. That sounded pretty good until someone asked how the government was going to pay for all that coverage.

Here's the funny thing: the government had to continually raise premiums, and millions of Americans could not afford to pay for the rising prices. That's where we are today! No one fixed anything! Obama-care, or the Affordable Care Act as it was called wasn't as affordable as politicians claimed. How is it still around today?

Remember the government shutdown this past fall? The Democrats and Republicans were arguing over how to fix this 15-year-old law that hasn't worked 'as promised' by Democrats.

Oh well, this is how politics is played in Washington. Someone comes along and promises everything will be better and cost less if we create more government bureaucracy and give 'the people' money to buy whatever they want or need. They certainly won't have to pay more for 'whatever.' It never costs more if the government is paying for it. At least no one has to pay for 'whatever' if the government is paying 'whatever' the people can't afford. And that's why 'whatever' has become a throw-away line for any argument a person cannot reasonably make. You know, Whatever!