“What do you mean by that?” Have you ever been in a situation where someone offered something to you, but the exact meaning of the proposal wasn’t exactly clear from the outset?
One example comes to mind. In the movie “Six Days, Seven Nights”, during one particular scene the sexy love interest (Angelica) of the main male lead, Quinn (played by Harrison Ford), says to the fiancé (Frank) of the main female lead, Robin (played by Anne Heche):
“Don’t worry, Quinn will take very good care of your girlfriend.”
Frank replies with a worried look, “What do you mean by that?”
Quinn and Robin’s plane was missing and Angelica was basically trying to reassure Frank that Robin would be safe with the very capable and manly Quinn while the two were isolated alone together somewhere… but could “take very good care of your girlfriend” have a double meaning, here?
Such was the similar feeling last week when, prompted to discuss the worrisome economic situation in the United States today, senile president Joe Biden assured Americans that inflation remains a top priority of his administration. In doing so, the Democrat White House occupant suggested that Republicans needed to “help” with the situation.
“Help” you, Mr. President? What do you mean by “help”?
“President Biden said more steps must be taken to stop soaring inflation after a Labor Department report showed mixed results for the job market. He acknowledged the crunch inflation has put on Americans and called on Republicans to help solve the problem.
“’There’s no question that inflation and high prices are a challenge for families across the country and fighting inflation is a top priority for me,’ Mr. Biden said in a statement. ‘There’s more work to do. I encourage Congressional Republicans to join us in our efforts to lower prices for families across the country by making more in America, strengthening our supply chains, and cutting the energy and prescription drug costs.’ …
“The report, released Friday, concluded the U.S. economy added 428,000 jobs in April, marking the 12th straight month of job growth above 400,000. It also showed that the unemployment rate remained at 3.6%, the lowest level in nearly 50 years. ‘Our plans and policies have produced the strongest job creation economy in modern times,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘The unemployment rate now stands at 3.6% — the fastest decline in unemployment to start a President’s term ever recorded.’”
Well, Joe, I hate to break it to you, but the unemployment rate is only returning to the golden days of near full-employment under Donald Trump before everything fell to pieces two years ago at the behest of the federal health authorities.
Jobs were destined to rebound after the country woke up from the mostly Democrat-induced funk brought on by the COVID-19 lockdowns and various other employment stifling government dictates like vaccine and mask mandates as well as the incredibly misguided notion that idle people should be paid more for not working than they would otherwise receive if they’d gotten up and went to the office or shop every morning.
What, you mean that people who are forced to earn their own money actually look for and take jobs? Say it isn’t so, Joe!
And what about the current Democrat scrum over whether or not to cancel or eliminate student loan debt? Aren’t all those college degrees in liberal arts subjects such as “Diversity studies” and the “Cultural history of Djibouti” supposed to produce graduates of immediate employment quality? These kids have to find jobs somewhere, and it certainly looks like they’re doing so in record numbers despite being practically skill-less and unemployable.
Here's thinking that the job market remains healthy because the current president inherited an incredibly strong economy from his predecessor, whose administration slashed regulations, cut red tape and created conditions where employers needed additional labor, all of which was disrupted if not destroyed by the world’s freakout over COVID. And liberals and Democrats blamed it all on Trump, too.
What we’re seeing today is the rebound, though how long it will last with inflation raging is yet to be seen. Who’s going to invest in a business when prices are rising four times faster than wages are growing? Do people like losing money or what? Has anyone taken a gander at what’s happened in the stock market lately? And what about that recent FED half-point interest rate hike which promises to be only the beginning of a massive monetary policy effort to kill inflation?
Biden thinks he deserves the credit for something good but none of the blame for everything else that went haywire, a glory-seeker who wants you to believe his explanation for the way things are without looking below the surface to see what’s really going on. There is a parallel to Biden’s bluster in the sports world: “Hi, I’m Joe Biden, the quarterback of a team that just won 49-0, which makes me an amazingly successful leader.” Taken at face value, it would seem the braggart signal-caller is correct, though what he neglected to mention was the defense and special teams scored three of the squad’s seven touchdowns and the running backs rushed for 97 percent of its total offense. (Sounds like my high school team, actually)
Meanwhile, the quarterback threw four interceptions in the red zone and only completed two passes, one to himself, and ran for negative 50 yards because he couldn’t regularly handle the snap from center and was tackled ten times behind the line of scrimmage for a loss.
What we really need in America is akin to a presidential version of a “quarterback rating” (QBR) which, in football terminology, factors in difficulty of each “action play” (type and depth of a pass and whether the QB was pressured), subtracts some of the yards after catch, takes “garbage time” (the end of a game with the quarterback’s team either significantly ahead or woefully behind) into account, weighs the strength of the opposing defense, and takes all of the data and transforms it to a 0 to 100 scale, with 50 being average. If there were any such thing in politics, Biden would receive about a 2.2 out of a hundred, which equates to running out on the field and handing off the ball most of the time without fumbling it. In case you were wondering, it’s not possible to have a negative quarterback rating score, so a presidential rating score couldn’t be less than zero either.
Translation: Joe Biden is able to wake up in the morning, fall out of bed, take a shower, comb his hair, put on a suit, receive briefing material from his army of handlers and advisors, and articulate something akin to political speak about how great he’s doing. Senile Joe will admit that inflation is indeed a problem, but overall, he’s doing a wonderful job because the “team” is winning in one particular area.
As for the rest, Biden says Republicans need to “help” him. But what does he mean by that? What is “help” to fight inflation? By past experience, Biden’s way for GOPers to “help” him on inflation would be to forget everything they’ve said and done throughout their political careers and vote for additional federal money to give to willing takers to “help” them pay for the inflated costs of consumer goods.
Need an extra ten grand to buy a car? Congress will send you a check to cover your shortfall. Then, some economist says that inflation and increased fuel and food prices are costing the average family of four another $4000 in annual expenses? Get “Chucky” Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to tell their followers to fire up the check printing presses and get that money out to the people lickety-split. And don’t means-test it, either. Why “help” a small subset of the population while the rest of the voting public looks on and feels left out of the spending spree?
Or, “help” could mean Republicans would agree to go along with a trillion or so bucks for more green “clean energy” subsidies to build future energy capacity to supplant carbon belching clean coal plants and, of course, oil and natural gas. Put up another billion giant windmills and no one will ever need to frack again, right? Wrong. (Check out this piece by Larry Sanford)
It’s inconceivable that someone as obtuse and intractable as Joe Biden would actually seek substantive input from Republicans on an issue as important as inflation. If they suggested drastically cutting federal spending or to unleash the domestic energy industry to produce additional millions of barrels of oil as soon as they can get it out of the ground, he’d cut them off wholesale.
Biden’s congressional leaders would never do it. Neither would he.
It’s only natural for Republicans to wonder what Joe Biden meant by asking them to “help” in containing inflation, because all Biden ever does is bash the “MAGA crowd” as extreme and dangerous to the country. He’d rather hog the credit for what’s going right and distribute blame for everything else. All in all, Joe’s “quarterback” rating is close to zero.
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