Biden, perhaps unwittingly, asked the question of the hour recently as he pitched his Build Back Better government spending plan: “What are we doing?”
To a crowd in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Wednesday, he said, “What are we doing? This is the United States of America, dam***!”
He repeated the question Monday in New Jersey, saying, “What are we doing? What in God’s name are we doing?”
Biden’s context was arguing that America was falling behind the world, and therefore, Congress needed to pass trillions in new government spending to catch up.
Regardless of the context, his question is a good one that he should be asking himself.
A majority of Americans believe the 46th president is not doing his job well, and they have strong reasons to feel this way.
Joe Biden:
"Try teaching from home. How many people did you see out in McDonald's parking lots with their kids in their cars because they get access to the internet?"
"What are we doing? This is the United States of America, Damnit! What are we doing?!" pic.twitter.com/C4l0SCGnTh
— The First (@TheFirstonTV) October 20, 2021
Gallup reported the president’s approval rating dropped from 56 percent in the first quarter of this year to 44.7 percent in the third quarter, an 11.3 percent drop, the largest registered of any president since World War II.
“This 11-point decline is larger than any prior president registered between his first and third quarters, although it is similar to those for the last three Democratic presidents — Barack Obama (10 points), Clinton (seven points) and Carter (nine points),” the firm reported.
When one considers the litany of self-made crises this president has overseen, it truly is astounding.
Recall the slew of executive orders issued on Day 1, which among other things, canceled the Keystone XL pipeline and halted oil exploration on federal lands just as the U.S. had reached energy independence during the Trump years.
Now, predictably gasoline prices have hit a seven-year high with no end in sight.
Additionally on that same day, Biden ended construction on the southern border wall and shut down the “Migrant Protection Protocols,” also known as the “Remain in Mexico” policy, prompting the worst migrant crisis in U.S. history.
There were over 1.7 million apprehensions at the southwest border during fiscal year 2021, which is an all-time high, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection figures.
The surge is 1.2 million more people than former President Donald Trump’s last year in office.
Then came the debacle in Afghanistan in August, which cost 13 American service members and dozens more Afghans their lives.
Further adding to the failure, Biden left scores of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies behind when he ordered the arbitrary pullout of American forces by the hard deadline of Aug. 31.
Viewing it from a macro level, America’s performance in the face of the Taliban can only serve to embolden China and Russia to flex their muscles in places like Taiwan and Ukraine respectively.
Economically, Biden and the Democrats appear to be doing everything they can to undo the strong foundation laid by Trump and the Republicans.
The unemployment rate hit a 50-year low in 2020 following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which passed during the first year of Trump’s presidency.
Of course, the rate regrettably spiked to 14.8 percent during the COVID shutdowns in the spring of 2020, but it was back down to 6.3 percent by January of this year when Trump left office, despite the pandemic restrictions still in place, particularly in blue states.
Though the nation was well on its ways to recovery, Democrats passed and Biden signed into law the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (with no Republican support), which extended enhanced unemployment benefits and monthly child tax credit payments.
These payments have no doubt kept many potential workers on the sidelines and helped send inflation to the highest levels in decades.
Now Biden is promoting his human infrastructure legislation, also known as Build Back Better, with big ticket items, like taxpayer-funded pre-K, rental assistance payments, free community college, paid family and sick leave, expanded health care benefits, enhanced child tax credits and climate change initiatives.
It would be the largest expansion of the entitlement state since the Great Society of the 1960s and the largest tax increase since that time too, according to the Tax Foundation.
Increasing taxes makes no sense while America and the world continue to recover economically from the COVID pandemic.
The Build Back Better proposal also comes while the U.S. was already running nearly $1 trillion deficits prior to the pandemic, as the nation struggles to pay for existing entitlements, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
Biden asked the right question, but it needs to be directed his way: What are you doing, Mr. President?