Biden Crashes and Burns as White House Faces Multiple Crises Foreign and Domestic
A perfect storm is swirling around President Joe Biden at the moment as multiple crises, both foreign and domestic, have all struck at once. To make matters worse, some of them are the direct result of his own administration’s ill-advised policies. Is he even aware of them?
The problems began to snowball on Friday morning, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that only 266,000 jobs had been added to the economy in April. Wall Street had expected four times that number. The anemic jobs report reversed the string of steady declines in the unemployment rate, boosting it to 6.1 percent.
At the same time, the country is facing a serious labor shortage. “Help wanted” signs appear everywhere. But employers can’t fill positions because the Biden administration sees fit to pay many would-be workers more in unemployment benefits than they could earn at a job.
The government has created a disincentive to work.
Following the bleak employment report on Friday morning, U.S. Chamber of Commerce Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley issued the following statement:
“The disappointing jobs report makes it clear that paying people not to work is dampening what should be a stronger jobs market. We need a comprehensive approach to dealing with our workforce issues and the very real threat unfilled positions poses to our economic recovery from the pandemic. One step policymakers should take now is ending the $300 weekly supplemental unemployment benefit. Based on the Chamber’s analysis, the $300 benefit results in approximately one in four recipients taking home more in unemployment than they earned working.”
Biden tried to put a positive spin on the story, “Today, there is more evidence our economy is moving in the right direction. This is progress. This is a testament to our new strategy. We’ve got work to do, to state the obvious, we have work to do.”
It certainly would appear so.
Fears that the Biden administration’s excessive spending would lead to high inflation were realized on Wednesday when the Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index in April had jumped 4.2 percent from a year earlier. According to CNBC, this was the largest year-over-year increase in inflation since September 2008, the start of the Great Recession.
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On Saturday, Biden received the bad news that the Colonial Pipeline, which distributes close to 2.5 million barrels of fuel to states on the Eastern Seaboard, was forced to shut down after becoming the target of a ransomware cyber attack. Many states are experiencing severe gas shortages, causing long lines at the pumps and price increases.
Prior to the pipeline shutdown, gasoline prices were already up by an average of 75 cents per gallon since the Nov. 3 election. Forbes’ David Blackmon attributes this to the energy policies of the current administration.
“The markets clearly see the Biden/Harris administration as one that will work to inhibit U.S. oil production, which will also have the effect of tightening the global market, and traders have responded by driving up the price of crude oil,” Blackmon wrote.
How quickly the U.S. has gone from low gas prices and near energy independence to high prices and likely dependence on foreign oil.
The border crisis continues to spiral out of control. In April, 178,000 illegals were apprehended at the southern border, remaining at a 20-year-high, according to a CBS report. Still, our border czar, Vice President Kamala Harris, has not visited the border to see for herself the conditions directly caused by the administration’s reckless immigration policies.
Additionally, Palestinian militants in Gaza have fired over 1,000 rockets into Israel since Monday, according to a Wednesday BBC report:
“The deadly exchange of fire … has escalated significantly, with the UN fearing a ‘full-scale war.’ Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Gaza, destroying three tower blocks and killing senior Hamas officials. At least 53 Palestinians and six Israelis have been killed since Monday,” the BBC reported.
Fox News senior editor Jeffrey Koffler reported that Biden is feeling the heat from both the left and the right over the conflict in Israel.
“Republicans began accusing Biden of tilting too far toward the Palestinians while failing to at least verbally sock it to Hamas. From the other side, leftists in his own party hit the White House for supposedly coddling Israel, with Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., accusing Biden of ‘enabling’ Israel with foreign aid,” Knoffler wrote.
“By Tuesday, an echo of the violence had spread to the streets of New York, where there were dustups between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian supporters in front of the Israeli consulate.”
And as ever, there’s COVID.
The presidency is a tough job. It takes its toll on men decades younger and more vital than Biden. Can he handle it?
Sky News Australia anchor Alan Jones doesn’t think so. In the video below, Jones segues from a discussion about a potential biological war with China to Biden.
Jones tells viewers: “Of course, there is a further threat to Western democracy and that lies in the weakness and incoherence of the 78-year-old U.S. President who can’t deliver a sentence without notes or a teleprompter.”
“Just have a look at this bloke and we can’t be serious that this is the leader of the Western world.”
Watch.
Those are words any American should be able to understand — regardless of political affiliation.
They’re also words that are taking on a special resonance as multiple crises batter the White House simultaneously.
It’s a perfect storm, and the country and the world can have little confidence in the captain of the ship.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
