Donald Trump’s accomplishments in office pale compared to Biden’s three years. Despite fighting Republicans, who have been devoted to stopping anything the Democrats propose, Biden has had a remarkably good term.
SIGNIFICANT BILLS BIDEN HAS PASSED IN 3+ YEARS
1. American Rescue Plan Act: A $1.9 trillion stimulus package aimed at addressing the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It includes provisions for direct payments, unemployment benefits, child tax credits, and funding for vaccine distribution.
2. Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: A $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that focuses on improving physical infrastructure, including roads, bridges, broadband, and public transit.
3. For the People Act of 2021: This bill aims to expand Americans’ access to the ballot box, reduce the influence of big money in politics, and strengthen ethics rules for public servants.
4. COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act: This bipartisan legislation addresses the rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans during the pandemic. It aims to improve reporting and response mechanisms.
5. Juneteenth National Independence Day Act: Designated June 19th as a federal holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.
6. Emergency Temporary Standard for COVID-19 Workplace Safety: Issued by OSHA to protect workers from COVID-19 exposure in certain industries.
7. Climate Executive Orders: President Biden signed several executive orders addressing climate change, rejoining the Paris Agreement, and promoting clean energy initiatives.
8. High-Tech Funding and NATO Expansion Bills: President Biden signed two bipartisan bills into law. One bill provides funding for high-tech initiatives, and the other adds Sweden and Finland to NATO.
9. Medicare Drug Price Negotiation: For the first time, Medicare can negotiate the price of certain high-cost drugs. Additionally, a month’s supply of insulin for seniors is capped at $35, and seniors’ out-of-pocket expenses at the pharmacy are capped at $2,000 a year.
This is not an exhaustive list but highlights some significant legislative actions the Biden Administration took.
While Trump passed many bills, most were narrowly focused and of minimal significance to America. Most of Trump’s bills aimed to undo bills signed by Obama, a Trump fixation that continues.
SIGNIFICANT BILLS TRUMP PASSED IN 4 YEARS
1. The CARES Act was a stimulus package passed by Congress in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It helped provide direct cash payments and tax rebates to households, especially those with low income and children, support small businesses and workers through forgivable loans and increased unemployment benefits.
2. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Aimed to simplify the tax code, reduce tax rates for wealthy individuals and corporations, and stimulate economic growth.
3. First Step Act: President Trump signed a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, the First Step Act, into law in 2018. It aimed to reduce recidivism, improve prison conditions, and provide opportunities for rehabilitation and reentry for incarcerated individuals.
WHAT “ACCOMPLISHMENTS” TRUMP WON’T BRAG ABOUT
1. The economy lost 2.9 million jobs. (Under Biden, the economy added more than 14 million jobs.). The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3%.
2. The S&P 500 index rose 67.8%. (Under Biden, the S&P 500 has increased 28.2% above Trump’s level.)
3. The number of people lacking health insurance rose by 3 million. (Under Biden, people without health insurance decreased by 0.7 percentage points or 2.4 million people.)
4. Handgun production rose 12.5% last year compared with 2016, setting a new record. (Under Biden, for three straight years, gun purchases declined.)
5. Under Trump, the murder rate in 2019 rose to the highest level since 1997. (In 2020, nine out of ten states with the highest per capita violent crime rates leaned Republican, while eight out of ten states with the lowest rates leaned Democrat. As to the murder rate specifically, states that voted for Donald Trump consistently exceeded states that voted for Joe Biden every year since 2000.)
In sum, the economy, employment, and crime improved under Biden compared to Trump. This left Trump to focus on immigration.
Trump claims that immigrants bring crime and drugs into America. However, research indicates that undocumented immigrants commit far fewer crimes compared to U.S. citizens. U.S.-born citizens are over twice as likely to be arrested for violent crimes and 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes.
Although illegal immigrants actually are a net positive for the American economy — they consume, pay taxes, and work at low-pay, unpleasant jobs most citizens won’t accept — most Americans want to reduce the number of illegals entering America. Trump has based his presidency run on that topic.
And now, he has destroyed his own best talking point:
On Feb 10 and 11, the Lincoln Project played an advert blaming Trump for killing Biden’s bipartisan border deal. Based on the former president’s subsequent late-night rant on Truth Social, the ad really got to him.
“Donald Trump doesn’t care if your family’s safety or the lives of law enforcement officers are in the balance,” a voiceover said in the ad. “He’s on the side of the cartels, coyotes, and child traffickers.”
The ad highlighted Trump’s role in killing Biden’s border deal, which was negotiated with several key Republicans and included significant concessions to conservative demands on immigration. Trump repeatedly urged Republicans to vote against the agreement, which they eventually did.
“Joe Biden is ready to protect America’s southern border,” the ad continued. “There’s only one problem” — at this point, the ad cuts to a clip of Biden, who finishes the sentence by saying, “Donald Trump.”
Trump took to social media to vent about the ad, writing a long, rambling post on Truth Social after midnight on the East Coast. He lashed out at what he called the “Failed Lincoln Project.”
“The perverts at the Failed Lincoln Project, who I was told were left-leaning RINOS that had lost their way and almost all of their financial support, just did an ad showing a grassy, calm, and peaceful Southern Border, not an Illegal Migrant in sight, explaining what a great job Crooked Joe Biden did in dealing with what has become just one of many Biden inspired, Country threatening, problems facing the United States today,” Trump wrote.
There is a certain irony in a man who has just been fined millions of dollars for attacking one woman and who has boasted about grabbing women’s genitalia, now calling members of the Lincoln Project “perverts.”
On Feb 4, videos went viral on X showing participants in the “Take Back Our Border” convoy expressing confusion at the distinct lack of chaos at the border. “They expected to see lines of immigrants lined up wanting entry and many trying to cross over outside the normal ports of entry,” Ford News wrote on X. “They say this isn’t happening at all.”
“In fact,” Ford News continued, “they aren’t seeing lines at all, no one crossing the border.… Some aren’t even sure now why they are there.”
The Lincoln Project also “didn’t happen to mention anything about the 18,000,000 Illegal Aliens that will have invaded our Country, many from prisons and mental institutions, by the end of the failed Biden Administration,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social rant.
In fact, as of 2021, there are about 10.5 million undocumented immigrants in the US in total. Between 2007 and 2021, the number of unauthorized immigrants in the country decreased by 1.75 million, according to the Pew Research Center.
As always, Trump inflates facts as he sees fit, hoping no one will notice. He was just fined $380 million for inflating the value of his real estate.
According to the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security removed “a higher percentage of arrested border crossers in its first two years than the Trump DHS did over its last two years.
Moreover, migrants were more likely to be released after a border arrest under President Trump than under President Biden.”
“Nor did [the Lincoln Project] talk about the drugs pouring into the USA in amounts so large that no one, just three years ago, would have thought it possible,” Trump continued.
According to the National Immigration Forum, in 2022, 88% of fentanyl trafficking offenders were US citizens.
In an April 2023 report, Third Way revealed that “just 0.02% of people arrested by Border Patrol for illegally crossing possessed fentanyl.”
That’s only two out of every ten thousand.
IN SUMMARY
Despite Trump’s false and ironic claim that Biden is incompetent, Biden’s records on the economy, healthcare, crime, employment, infrastructure, the environment, global warming, unemployment, and even immigration all are better than Trump’s.
This has reduced Trump to making provably fake complaints about illegal immigrants bringing in drugs and crime.
And now, even those complaints are gone at Trump’s own hands. He instructed his GOP toadies not to vote for an immigration control package that was created by Republicans together with Democrats because he cynically wanted to preserve it as a talking point before the election.
It’s as though he were telling his followers, “It’s a serious problem that hurts America daily. But don’t cure it. I want it to worsen before the election so I can whine about it. Also, I don’t want Republicans to work with Democrats. I prefer the chaos and stagnation of my presidency.”
So, as his next outrageous act, the worst pervert in U.S. presidential history is now left to claiming that those who criticize him are perverts.
You might wonder why MAGAs don’t open their eyes and see Trump for the lying, con artist, traitor, and psychopath he really is. But that would be missing the point.
MAGAs don’t care about facts. They use fact only as a rationalization for their feelings. They are afraid and believe Trump will protect them.
They are afraid of “them.” Nonwhite, the poor, gays, women, Muslims, Jews, immigrants, foreigners (except Putin) — these comprise “them.”
MAGAs, being afraid of “them,” hate “them,” because fear and hate are two sides of the same coin. You can’t hate someone unless, deep inside, you also fear them.
That is why Trump can “shoot someone on 5th Ave. and not lose followers,” as he famously claimed.
And that is why he can get away with claiming, against all evidence, that undocumented immigrants bring crime, drugs, and unemployment to America, poison our blood, do not pay taxes, and take without contributing. At the same time, Trump rejects Biden’s efforts to reduce undocumented immigration.
It makes no logical sense, but there is no logic. There are no facts. There is only fear and hatred stirred up by Trump, Fox News, Breitbart, and other immoral opportunists.
The MAGAs love to wave American flags to prove their patriotism. But, like members of every cult, their allegiance is not to America but only to the cult leader, who promises to protect his followers while fleecing them of everything they have.
Want further evidence? See the comment section of this post.
Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
Twitter: @rodgermitchell, Search #monetarysovereignty, Facebook: Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
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THE SOLE PURPOSE OF GOVERNMENT IS TO IMPROVE AND PROTECT THE LIVES OF THE PEOPLE.
#Monetary Sovereignty - Mitchell 
Rex Huppke wrote:
It appears Republican lawmakers might have accidentally legislated.
I know, it’s shocking. They seem to occupy the halls of Congress largely for the purpose of yelling angrily into Fox News television cameras and praising the twice-impeached, multi-indicted former president who is driving their party off an electoral cliff.
But for some inexplicable reason, House Republicans got something done this week. With the help of Democrats, they voted on a $79 billion tax bill that will expand the child tax credit, a wildly effective tool for helping low-income families.
The bill also brings back some corporate tax breaks, the kind of thing we normally associate with Republicans. But look, the child tax credit expansion – even if Democrats would rather see it be more substantial – will directly help some of the country’s poorest families. So, you know … it’s a net good thing.
What gives?
Republican Rep. Troy Nehls of Texas told CNN last month: “Let me tell you, I’m not willing to do too damn much right now to help a Democrat and to help Joe Biden’s approval rating. I will not help the Democrats try to improve this man’s dismal approval ratings. I’m not going to do it. Why would I?”
[Uh, to help Americans? Nah]
Off that fine bit of opportunistic politicking came … GASP! … actual legislation from the U.S. House of Representatives in the form of the new bipartisan tax bill.
Well, before you start worrying that GOP lawmakers and others in the extended MAGA universe have come to their senses (HAH!), know there are conservatives in the Senate who promise to knock that new legislation down right quick.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa told everyone to slow their roll on the House-passed bill that might benefit as many as 400,000 children living in poverty: “I think passing a tax bill that makes the president look good – mailing out checks before the election – means he could be reelected.”
Columbia University’s Center on Poverty and Social Policy estimated the tax credits lifted 3.7 million children out of poverty and reduced the country’s child poverty rate by 30% a month.
Because America can’t have nice things, Republicans, along with (alleged) Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, nixed the expanded credits at the end of 2021. And you’ll never believe what happened next! The child poverty rate shot right back up.
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This is the story every American should read:
Trump’s hubris has brought about the downfall of his family’s business empire
By Sidney Blumenthal
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Wow…he truly is sick…became a Republican…finally a GOOD move
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Republished the opening part of this post and offered the web address of the entire post on Ideas From Outside the boxes. Thank you for providing this info where it can be seen all at once and where it can be compared — and contrasted.
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