There’s nothing like using an event honoring the legacy of a revered civil rights icon to blast your political opponents.
President Biden had the mic as keynote speaker at Monday’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Breakfast in Washington, D.C., and he ran with it.
The National Action Network noted that the breakfast honored former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Arndrea Waters King and “other national leaders who have kept Dr. King’s mission alive.” Biden had his own script.
“They’re gonna talk about big-spending Democrats again. Guess what? I reduced the deficit last year $350 billion. This year, federal deficit is down $1 trillion-plus. That’s a fact. And there’s gonna be hundreds of billions reduced over the next decade. But so what? These guys are the fiscally demented, I think. They don’t quite get it,” Biden said of Republicans, prompting laughter from the crowd, according to The Hill.
Never mind that his claim has been debunked. Marc Goldwein, senior vice president at the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget said in an interview with CNN that Biden’s claims about having personally reduced the deficit are “almost bizarro world,” a reversal of reality. The deficit would have fallen by much more “had President Biden come to office and not done anything,” he said.
What Biden calls “fiscally demented,” others call “doing the math.”
He also took aim at Republicans for slamming his college debt relief plan: ” …they’re complaining about some kid being able to take away $20,000 of student debt that keeps him and his wife or his husband, her husband from being able to buy a home or start a business or just get going?” he said, saying he’s confident his plan will clear the legal challenges against it.
Never mind that this kicks a large government debt can down the road for future taxpayers.
Why focus on partisan politics at such an event?
If this was a trial balloon for future speeches on the campaign trail, should Biden decide to run for re-election, it needs work. Too many voters are still feeling the effects of inflation, spurred by Democrats’ runaway spending, to see Biden as the guy with a sound fiscal policy.
“Fiscally demented” is right up there with “no malarkey” as slogan fails.
The speech did, however, serve as a distraction from Biden’s classified document drama. Democrats who crowed over the discovery of Donald Trump’s trove of classified papers at Mar-a-Lago are now on uneasy street.
West Wing staffers and officials in the Biden administration and Democratic Party expressed frustration to CBS News with how the White House has explained the documents’ discovery to the public, saying not disclosing their discovery earlier undercuts the president’s vows of transparency.
What better time for Biden to go on the offensive – even if his spiel is old hat and has been found wanting by economic experts?
The official probe into Biden’s classified documents haul will take some time and garner media attention. If we can’t, apparently, look to this administration for transparency, we can at least hope that the president comes up with new material.
We’ve heard it all before.
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