President Joe Biden spoke at the 29th AFL-CIO Quadrennial Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on Tuesday and he would have kept an army of fact-checkers busy with his tall tales, if they actually plied their trade against Democrats.
In the face of 40-year high inflation, the highest average gas prices America has ever seen, a tanking DOW and mothers stressing over the uncertainty of being able to feed their babies, Biden did his best to put a positive spin on the economy but was a bit too ambitious in the endeavor, making a “series of false claims,” the Daily Mail reported.
The British news outlet noted that Biden was trying “to reset the terms of the debate on the economy” as his “own approval ratings have slid while consumer prices — and the cost of gasoline — have surged,” before pointing out the first falsehood he pushed.
“Since I took office, with your help, families are carrying less debt nationwide. They have more savings nationwide,” he claimed. “More Americans applied for new small businesses last year than ever before in American history — 5.4 million new small-business applications. Jobs and companies are coming home again. And we’re making ‘Buy American’ a reality, not just a slogan.”
Biden: "Since I took office, with your help, families are carrying less debt nationwide. They have more savings nationwide." pic.twitter.com/agZJhCOl6d
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) June 14, 2022
Citing data from the Federal Reserve, the Daily Mail reported that household debt “has increased by over $1.5trillion since Biden took office,” and that credit card debt in the U.S. “is at record highs as well after jumping nearly 20% during the month of April to $1.103 trillion. The previous pre-pandemic record was $1.1 trillion.”
“Americans’ savings accounts have also shrunk by more than $9,000 over the past year – from $73,100 in 2021 to $62,086 in 2022 – according to a survey from wealth management company Northwestern Mutual,” the outlet added.
The focus on “less” family debt was rolled out last week when Biden spoke at the Port of Los Angeles:
Biden is either living in a different reality or his staff is lying to him. "Since I took office, families are carrying less debt on average in America, they have more savings than they've had." pic.twitter.com/2fKvwp9niQ
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) June 10, 2022
The president followed this fib up with an angry denial that he is a “big spender.”
“And, by the way, Republicans like to portray me as some kind of big spender. We have spent a lot of money, but let’s compare the facts. Under my predecessor, the deficit exploded, raising — rising every single year. And all of the benefit going to the top 1 percent, basically,” Biden said, this being a dishonest take on the GOP tax cuts passed under Trump.
He boasted about cutting the deficit — a relatively easy task given all the pandemic spending over the past two years.
“You know, they talk about, ‘Biden wants to spend more on schools and all this. Guess what? He’s going to create a deficit.’ Ladies and gentlemen, this year, by the end of the fiscal year, we will have cut the federal deficit by another $1.6 trillion — in one year. One year,” Biden said. “So, when they come to you and talk about big spenders, let them know. Almost $2 trillion in deficit reduction.”
The old man is yelling again pic.twitter.com/OokR8XOqzf
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) June 14, 2022
“I don’t want to hear any more of these lies about reckless spending. We’re changing people’s lives,” he yelled angrily. “And because of the fact, this year, we’re delivering the biggest drop in the deficit in the history of the United States of America.”
Stressing that even some Democrats have suggested that government spending has been a problem for middle class families, the Daily Mail shared a Feb. 2021 prediction from economist and former Obama administration official Larry Summers.
“There is a chance that macroeconomic stimulus on a scale closer to World War II levels than normal recession levels will set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation, with consequences for the value of the dollar and financial stability,” Summers wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.
“This will be manageable if monetary and fiscal policy can be rapidly adjusted to address the problem. But given the commitments the Fed has made, administration officials’ dismissal of even the possibility of inflation, and the difficulties in mobilizing congressional support for tax increases or spending cuts, there is the risk of inflation expectations rising sharply.”
And rise it did, as are the predictions of a coming recession.
The president would go on to spin the old yarn about his family’s kitchen table in Delaware that earned him the nickname “working-class Joe,” explaining to the union members that he understands how high gas prices affect Americans — even though his policies have much to do with the skyrocketing price at the pump.
“I grew up in household not far from here, in Claymont and Wilmington, where if the price of a gallon of gasoline went up, it was a conversation at the dinner table. It mattered. It mattered in my working family. It mattered if the price of food went up,” he said.
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Tom Tillison grew up in Maryland before moving to Central Florida as a young teen. It is in the Sunshine State that he honed both his passion for politics and his writing skills. Tillison also contributes to BizPac Review.
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