Biden’s long road to 2024, get real on the budget and other commentary
Democrat: Biden’s Long Road to 2024
President Biden’s “standing in the polls is nothing to write home to Scranton about,” worries Brad Bannon at The Hill. But: “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,” and while Biden has “a minus 10 percent net personal rating” in the new NBC poll, ex-Prez Donald Trump “is even deeper underwater, at minus 19 percent.” Yet “an incumbent should never stand or fall on the weakness of his opponent, especially if the GOP smartens up and nominates someone other than Trump,” and “it’s way too early to accept the conventional wisdom that he is cruising toward a third nomination.” Indeed, “primary poll numbers” are “about as stable as spring weather in New England,” and Trump’s lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is just 15%, which “could dissipate completely in the heat of a tough primary.”
Libertarian: Get Real on the Budget
“I wish people would stop fearmongering for a second so we can have a real conversation about our fiscal future,” fumes Veronique de Rugy at Reason. In the “brewing battle over raising the debt ceiling,” “story after story in the media alerts readers of the horrible things that could happen if” Republicans get their “paltry cuts”: “Flight delays would mount due to air traffic control budget reductions; hunger would afflict children; suicides would skyrocket. Woe would sweep over the republic. Really? I don’t recall chronic flight delays or a food crisis in, say, 2019.” Then, “discretionary spending was $1.338 trillion — or some $320 billion less than what Republicans” propose. “Instead of pretending Republicans are monsters for demanding small budget reductions, Democrats need to start putting facts ahead of politics” — and “as every serious” person knows, solvency requires “real reform of entitlement programs.”
From the right: Dems’ Elitism Hurts the Middle Class
“Excessive government spending, starting with the American Rescue Plan in 2021, spurred inflation and the ensuing hardship that households — especially middle-class households — are struggling with today,” rails Patrice Onwuka at RealClearPolitics. The left credits the Inflation Reduction Act for slowing inflation, but instead it “was a climate bill dressed up as price relief.” “Shelling out an average of more than $58,000 for” an electric car is “an afterthought for coastal elites with comfortable six-figure incomes” — but “out of reach for many U.S. households.” For struggling Americans, President Biden’s EV push “is just another ‘let them eat cake’ policy.”
Foreign desk: Cuba on the Brink
“Cuba’s communist regime is at its weakest point in decades,” reports the Council on Foreign Relations’ Will Freeman. The “island’s already feeble economy” is collapsing, as it lost support from allies like Venezuela and COVID killed tourism, which has yet to “fully rebound.” Progress on “market reforms has stalled.” And: “Mismanagement and dysfunction, already acute before, have worsened” since Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez took over as president in 2018. Inflation hit 200% and is slow to fall. Voters are refusing to show up for sham elections among other “signs that Cubans are increasingly willing to defy pressure to participate in legitimizing the regime.” A full 3% of the population’s tried to flee through the US southern border. Expect “further instability and dissent.”
Green watch: Putting Humans Last
The word “sustainability” has “fostered a narrative in which human needs and aspirations have taken a back seat to the green austerity of Net Zero and ‘degrowth,’” laments Joel Kotkin at Spiked. “The ruling classes” are “determined to save the planet by immiserating their fellow citizens.” The expected global cost of their agenda: “$6 trillion per year for the next 30 years.” Green activists want fewer people on the planet, living ever-more-meager lives. The “ultra-rich” will profit; it’s “class warfare obscured by green rhetoric,” pitting “elites” against “ordinary citizens.” It “does no good to suggest” policies “that will keep the poor impoverished. Unless people’s concerns about the green agenda are addressed, they will almost certainly seek to disrupt the best-laid plans of our supposedly enlightened elites.”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
