The Biden presidency inherited a succession of unprecedented crises. These crises affected the entire world and produced much worse economic outcomes in peer countries: We had a once-in-a-century pandemic that killed millions of people and shut down entire industries. As president, you get credit for things when things are good, and you get blamed when things are bad, even when they are out of your control.
It is worth taking a look at what, exactly, Americans have been hearing about the economy over the past three years
We saw this in 2019 when Donald Trump had done nothing to help the American economy. In fact, he tried his best to hurt it, with massive tax cuts for the wealthy and a ridiculous trade war. But he still presided over an economy that was finally recovering after a financial crisis, and he got the credit.
We also saw it in 2020, to a certain extent, when Covid annihilated the U.S. economy — and Trump lost. Once Biden took over — basically from the very moment he was sworn in — we were inundated with negative messaging about the economy. Some of it was rooted in real crises that the administration had to tackle. Some of it was overhyped.
Now, this collective freakout about the economy happened across the media ecosystem, but it was most pronounced on Fox News. So it is worth taking a look at what, exactly, Americans have been hearing about the economy over the past three years, and compare that with actual circumstances and how the Biden White House has responded.
Let’s start with the labor issue: Biden took office amid an unprecedented global pandemic. Remember, there was not even a widely available vaccine when he was sworn in. As a result, the Biden administration continued the economic stimulus from the Trump pandemic response, including additional direct cash payments and an additional $300 a week in unemployment benefits.
Fox News’ response to labor shortages amid a deadly global pandemic was endless coverage about how, suddenly, no one wanted to work anymore.
To be fair, some businesses did have trouble finding workers. It was a real challenge for the White House, especially when the Delta variant hit that summer and more than a 100,000 people were still being hospitalized every week. But then what happened? Well, the Biden administration continued its vaccination campaign and the virus subsided to a level where people were comfortable going to work in person. Equally as importantly, his bold agenda of economic stimulus worked. Unemployment dropped massively, from 6.3 percent when Biden took office to 3.7 percent in the last jobs report. People definitely want to work.
Unemployment dropped massively, from 6.3 percent when Biden took office to 3.7 percent in the last jobs report.
Once the jobs numbers improved, Fox News mostly moved off the “nobody wants to work anymore” narrative. There was a new boogeyman in town: the supply chain. These issues were also very real, especially in the aftermath of Covid. But Fox took the opportunity, starting all the way back in October 2021, to spin the yarn that Biden was responsible for the supply chain issues and, apparently, doing it to ruin Christmas for America’s children.
But months before Fox started its latest war on Christmas, Biden had put together a task force to combat supply chain issues. By the fall, he announced that the Port of Los Angeles would be working 24/7 to clear the backlog, as well as that additional investments from USPS and FedEx would make sure packages got moving. By November, the heads of a bunch of major retail companies were shouting from the rooftops that no supply chain issue was affecting holiday shopping. In fact, holiday spending in 2021 grew nearly 15 percent from the year before, shattering all kinds of records. Crisis averted: The presents were under the tree.
It wasn’t just Christmas presents, either. Early last year, Biden administration was also dealing with a very real and very scary shortage of baby formula. They put together another plan to increase supply and fix allocation issues, which were caused by a shuttered factory and a product recall. The White House later declared that production had actually increased year-over-year under its watch. By October, shelf stock rates were back where they had been before the crisis started.
At this point, Biden had been president for two years, and the midterm elections were approaching. Republicans did not have much to run on, especially after the Dobbs decision struck down abortion rights. Their best hope was to run on the economy, specifically inflation, which had been spiking because of the hot labor market and lingering disruptions from the pandemic.
Fox News did its level best to act as the messaging arm of the Republican Party, spending day after day after day talking about “eggflation.” The price of eggs is an interesting case, in that it really wasn’t about inflation at all. In early 2022, an avian flu outbreak killed tens of millions of egg-laying chickens. Yet another example of a supply crunch out of the president’s control. And guess what? The ship corrected course. Farmers raised new chickens, egg prices came right back down. Your omelet was no longer in danger.
Fox saved the big guns for “the pain at the pump.” Amid a major land war in Europe and a mass blockade of Russian oil, gas was averaging more than $5 a gallon. Now, for better or for worse (in my opinion, for worse), domestic oil production is booming under Biden. We’re producing more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia. Gas prices are down from their peak last year, with the national average hovering at about $3.22 a gallon, the lowest in nearly a year following a steady decline.
The story of the Biden presidency so far has been this series of metaphorical meteors hitting the Earth, unexpected and in many cases unprecedented.
These days, you don’t really hear Fox News talking too much about the price of gas. Or eggs. Or baby formula. Or Christmas presents.
So the story of the Biden presidency so far has been this series of metaphorical meteors hitting the Earth, unexpected and in many cases unprecedented crises that the White House had to attend to. Each one has caused huge cycles of enormous, around-the-clock panic across the media.
In every case, the Biden administration attempted to do something about the problem. In many cases, they saw real, tangible success. They quietly did their job, then moved on to the next crisis.
That is not the message getting through on Fox News. No, the message on Fox is that the entire economy is going to collapse any minute now, and a recession is imminent.
Except that according to a recent survey of business economists, the overwhelming majority of them — more than 75 percent! — do not believe a recession is likely. The fundamentals of the economy are much sounder than you might think: GDP is booming, and more importantly, real wages are rising. This means wages are rising faster than inflation, allowing working people more purchasing power. In fact, the largest wage gains have happened in the bottom 40% of workers. The recession that Fox News promised is now far from certain.
We are left in this weird environment where people genuinely feel very bad about the economy. And the weird thing about the way that credit and blame works in the public consciousness: Presidents get blamed for the bad stuff and praised for the good. Even though the Fed, say, has more to do with cooling inflation that the White House does.
But Biden is not getting the praise he deserves. If you are evaluating presidential performance, you have to keep the rules consistent. Donald Trump and his buddies on Fox News want to praise him for the great economy from 2017 through 2019, while ignoring the 2020 disaster that unfolded under his watch. They want you to believe Trump’s term only lasted three years, then he just disappeared before Biden took over, when a bunch of bad stuff happened under his watch.
The record, however, shows that Trump oversaw the biggest job loss in American history, along with mass death and abject disaster. You might argue that was not all Trump’s fault — true enough. But then inflation and the supply chain and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and spiking gas prices and shipping backlogs are not Biden’s fault, either.
Biden got to work putting together an economic vision totally opposite to Trump’s. As Biden likes to say, an economy from the middle up and from the bottom up. It’s produced tangible benefits, and it has been the best economic performance of a president, under very difficult conditions, that this nation has seen since FDR.
VANCOUVER – Supervised injection sites are saving the lives of drug users everyday, but the same support is not being offered to people who inhale illicit drugs, the head of the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS says.
Dr. Julio Montaner said the construction of Vancouver’s first indoor supervised site for people who inhale drugs comes as the percentage of people who die from smoking drugs continues to climb.
The location in the Downtown Eastside at the Hope to Health Research and Innovation Centre was unveiled Wednesday after construction was complete, and Montaner said people could start using the specialized rooms in a matter of weeks after final approvals from the city and federal government.
“If we don’t create mechanisms for these individuals to be able to use safely and engage with the medical system, and generate points of entry into the medical system, we will never be able to solve the problem,” he said.
“Now, I’m not here to tell you that we will fix it tomorrow, but denying it or ignoring it, or throw it under the bus, or under the carpet is no way to fix it, so we need to take proactive action.”
Nearly two-thirds of overdose deaths in British Columbia in 2023 came after smoking illicit drugs, yet only 40 per cent of supervised consumption sites in the province offer a safe place to smoke, often outdoors, in a tent.
The centre has been running a supervised injection site for years which sees more than a thousand people monthly and last month resuscitated five people who were overdosing.
The new facilities offer indoor, individual, negative-pressure rooms that allow fresh air to circulate and can clear out smoke in 30 to 60 seconds while users are monitored by trained nurses.
Advocates calling for more supervised inhalation sites have previously said the rules for setting up sites are overly complicated at a time when the province is facing an overdose crisis.
More than 15,000 people have died of overdoses since the public health emergency was declared in B.C. in April 2016.
Kate Salters, a senior researcher at the centre, said they worked with mechanical and chemical engineers to make sure the site is up to code and abidies by the highest standard of occupational health and safety.
“This is just another tool in our tool box to make sure that we’re offering life-saving services to those who are using drugs,” she said.
Montaner acknowledged the process to get the site up and running took “an inordinate amount of time,” but said the centre worked hard to follow all regulations.
“We feel that doing this right, with appropriate scientific background, in a medically supervised environment, etc, etc, allows us to derive the data that ultimately will be sufficiently convincing for not just our leaders, but also the leaders across the country and across the world, to embrace the strategies that we are trying to develop.” he said.
Montaner said building the facility was possible thanks to a single $4-million donation from a longtime supporter.
Construction finished with less than a week before the launch of the next provincial election campaign and within a year of the next federal election.
Montaner said he is concerned about “some of the things that have been said publicly by some of the political leaders in the province and in the country.”
“We want to bring awareness to the people that this is a serious undertaking. This is a very massive investment, and we need to protect it for the benefit of people who are unfortunately drug dependent.” he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
FREDERICTON – The six chiefs of the Wolastoqey Nation in New Brunswick distributed a survey on Indigenous issues to political parties ahead of the provincial election, which is scheduled to kick off Thursday. Here are some of the answers from the Progressive Conservative, Liberal and Green parties.
Q: How does your party plan to demonstrate a renewed commitment to recognizing our joint treaty responsibilities and acknowledging that the lands and waters of this territory remain unceded?
Progressive Conservative: The party respectfully disagrees with the assertion that land title has been unceded. This is a legal question that has not been determined by the courts.
Liberal: When we form government, the first conversations the premier-designate will have is with First Nations leaders. We will publicly and explicitly acknowledge your treaty rights, and our joint responsibility as treaty people.
Green: The Green Party acknowledges that New Brunswick is situated on the unceded and unsurrendered territories of the Wolastoqiyik, Mi’kmaq and Peskotomuhkati peoples, covered by the Treaties of Peace and Friendship. Our party is committed to establishing true nation-to-nation relationships with First Nations, grounded in mutual respect and co-operation as the treaties intended.
Q: How does your party propose to approach the issue of provincial tax agreements with First Nations?
Progressive Conservative: The government of New Brunswick operates in a balanced and fair manner with all organizations, institutions and local governments that represent the citizens of this province, including First Nations. Therefore, we cannot offer tax agreements that do not demonstrate a benefit to all citizens.
Liberal: Recent discussions with First Nations chiefs shed light on the gaps that existed in the previous provincial tax agreements with First Nations. Our party is committed to negotiating and establishing new tax agreements with First Nations that address the local needs and priorities and ensure all parties have a fair deal.
Green: The Green Party is committed to fostering a respectful relationship with First Nations in New Brunswick and strongly opposes Premier Blaine Higgs’s decision to end tax-sharing agreements. We believe reinstating these agreements is crucial for supporting the economic development and job creation in First Nation communities.
Q: How will your party ensure more meaningful participation of Indigenous communities in provincial land use and resource management decision-making?
Progressive Conservative: The government of New Brunswick has invested significant resources in developing a robust duty to consult and engagement process. We are interested in fully involving First Nations in the development of natural resources, including natural gas development. We believe that the development of natural gas is better for the environment — because it allows for the shutdown of coal-fired power plants all over the globe — and it allows for a meaningful step along the path to reconciliation.
Liberal: Our party is focused on building strong relations with First Nations and their representatives based on mutual respect and a nation-to-nation relationship, with a shared understanding of treaty obligations and a recognition of your rights. This includes having First Nations at the table and engaged on all files, including land-use and resource management.
Green: We will develop a new Crown lands management framework with First Nations, focusing on shared management that respects the Peace and Friendship Treaties. We will enhance consultation by developing parameters for meaningful consultation with First Nations that will include a dispute resolution mechanism, so the courts become the last resort, not the default in the face of disagreements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – A crew member of a Canadian Coast Guard ship has been lost at sea off southern Newfoundland.
The agency said in a release Wednesday that an extensive search and rescue effort for the man was ended Tuesday evening.
He was reported missing on Monday morning when the CCGS Vincent Massey arrived in St. John’s, N.L.
The coast guard says there was an “immediate” search on the vessel for the crew member and when he wasn’t located the sea and air search began.
Wednesday’s announcement said the agency was “devastated to confirm” the crew member had been lost at sea, adding that decisions to end searches are “never taken lightly.”
The coast guard says the employee was last seen on board Sunday evening as the vessel sailed along the northeast coast of Newfoundland.
Spokeswoman Kariane Charron says no other details are being provided at this time and that the RCMP will be investigating the matter as a missing person case.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
