23 December 2021

Note from Norm: Stop Democrat’s Charge of the Light Brigade

Democratic United States Senator Joe Manchin has done the working families of America and the economy a tremendous service by rejecting the Biden Administration’s “Build Back Better” monolithic spending bill.

Democrats, of course, are screaming mad today because the West Virginia Democrat opted for protecting the nascent economic recovery after a punishing pandemic blow rather than assuaging the passions of the far left of his party.

With inflation at a record 30-year high, the prices of everything in America climbing higher and higher every day, the last thing working families need right now is another Democratic fiscal boondoggle that will push the cost of living in America even higher.

The President and Democrats were warned last year, and again this spring, by economic advisors on both the left and the right of the political spectrum that the greatest threat to the recovering economy was their insistence on pumping more government money into the pipeline.

But the President, whose capacity to believe in his omnipotence on foreign policy despite being wrong on every major foreign policy issue in the past 30 years, shed commonsense for a belief that government needed to intervene in an economy which was doing just fine, thank you very much.

The euphemistically titled “Build Back Better” bill really is little more than a disguise for Socialist Bernie Sanders to further impose his will on the Democratic Party and demand further government intrusion into the lives of Americans.

Senator Manchin said it best when he intoned his opposition to the bill:

“My Democratic colleagues in Washington are determined to dramatically reshape our society in a way that leaves our country more vulnerable to the threats we face…I cannot take that risk with a staggering debt of more than $29 trillion and inflation taxes that are real and harmful to every hard-working American at the gasoline pumps, grocery stores and utility bills with no end in sight.”

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Sanders, Biden and the ultra-left dominated leadership of the Democratic Party believe the economy needs their “help.”

It doesn’t.  What it needs, and what American working families need, is for Democrats to butt out.

And now.

When the global pandemic began in 2020 it was incumbent upon government to step up and support American families and there was great bipartisan cooperation in getting aid passed and out the door to ensure families could pay their bills, businesses could keep their doors open and American workers could keep their jobs.

That spirit of cooperation helped America through extraordinary tough times.  And, as 2020 began to turn to 2021 it was clear that the American economy was starting to regain momentum as vaccinations increased, businesses began to reopen, workers returned to their jobs and optimism began to emerge from the dark winter of COVID-19.

But, nearly as soon as the final words of his oath of office were spoken, Joe Biden was ready to intervene in an economy which wasn’t looking for his help.

Trillions of dollars in new government programs and spending were put forward under the guise that the economy was weak, unstable, and anemic.

It wasn’t until it was.

Joe Manchin made the best decision possible for West Virginia and for America when he said “No” to the Democrats non-stop “Yes” to fanning the flames of inflation with more government spending.

He also made it clear that Democrats, and the President, have lost focus that the greatest threat to America today isn’t a lack of government spending.  It’s that government spending is threatening our capacity to deal with growing threats from abroad.

Every new dollar Democrats want to spend is taking away the government capacity to respond to threats from China, Russia and a myriad of other global pressures that require greater attention to our nation’s security at home and abroad.

Democrats have become so obsessed with spending money on their ideological fantasies that they have lost sight of that that our global adversaries are building and rebuilding their military might so rapidly that we are in danger of falling behind at a time in history when we can ill-afford to fail to meet the challenges to democracy across the world.

Democratic leadership has vowed to keep voting and voting and voting until they find a way to pass the “Build Back Better” bill.

Imagine if Democrats had heeded the words of President Bill Clinton in 1996 when he declared that “…the era of big government is over!”  America would have been much better off today.

Despite Joe Manchin’s best efforts to deliver a warning to Democrats political “Charge of the Light Brigade” –  a majority of them in Congress are committed to leading America into the valley of economic death.

Every day they do so is another day they are adding greater uncertainty to the economy, destabilizing the economic recovery we need, and undermining our ability to respond to threats at home and abroad.