Tom Riggins: Biden’s actions speak volumes

I decided after the election to wait and see what the new president would do before I started in on his administration. After all, actions count. Well, it didn’t take long for the Biden administration to prove the worst fears of many, including me.

One radio pundit called him Barack O’Biden. That may be more apropos than we realize. If in fact Obama is calling the shots behind the scenes, he is making up for his mistake of not getting more done when Democrats had control of both houses.

Back to O’Biden. Here is a list of what he has done. These are actions, not promises. First, he managed to eliminate 11,000 direct jobs when he stopped the XL pipeline plus 60,000 jobs indirectly dependent on the pipeline. He also banned fracking on public lands in direct contravention of his campaign promises. Not bad for someone who vowed to unite the country.

Combine that with his signing the U.S. back on to the Paris Climate Accord. What he accomplished there was to place a huge financial burden on the U.S. Other countries are gleeful that they no longer have to support this financial albatross. Trump pulled out not because he is anti-environment but because the U.S. was expected to pay for nearly all of it.

These two actions have elated the Middle East, Russia, and Venezuela. They are now in control of the world’s oil supply. As a result, local gasoline prices have increased over 40 cents per gallon in the last month. If you like that, you will really love the $5 per gallon price I see coming soon.

Another O’Biden action was to stop construction on the border wall. This caused another 5,000 jobs to be lost. Further, illegal immigration is skyrocketing. There were 1,600 migrants arrested in three days in a single Texas border sector. Cochise County, Arizona Sheriff Mark Dannels said that rescinding border wall construction has resulted in five to six groups a day crossing the border. He said apprehensions in his county went from 300 to 500 a year ago to 2,500 in December. He calls it a crime scene.

Uvalde, Texas Mayor Don McLaughlin said “Illegal immigrants from 59 different countries have crossed the border illegally in our area – the Del Rio Sector. These illegal immigrants are from China, South America, Venezuela, Cuba, and the Middle East and Africa, just to name a few." In completely hypocritical news coverage, the “containment centers” that Obama had built that became the “cages” of the Trump administration are now once again “containment centers” that unsurprisingly, are said to now be overflowing.

The $1.9 trillion dollar COVID stimulus package passed by Congress seems to be the final straw for investors in U.S. bonds. At the last bond sale held last week apparently there were essentially no buyers. Here is why this is important. When you buy a bond you are lending money to the issuer. There are over $28 trillion in U.S. debt. That is accomplished through Treasury bonds and bills. These existing bonds compete with new issues. When the yield on existing Treasuries is greater than that of new issues, buyers for the new ones are limited.

The importance is that it is a sign that investors, especially foreign investors, perceive a higher risk in the Treasury market. Faith in the U.S. economy appears to be declining. Proposed Democrat spending like never before is much of the cause. When the Green New Deal proposal along with “infrastructure” proposals is combined with the COVID stimulus package which is really mostly a pork-laden transfer of money to their cronies is seen, faith declines. The Federal Reserve has been buying the bonds then selling many of them back to the federal government. In other words, we are loaning ourselves money.

Combine the existing $28 trillion debt with the $2.3 trillion budget deficit, the $1.9 trillion stimulus and all of the proposed agendas, and we appear to be on a course to bankrupt America. That scenario simply has no positive outcome that I can see.

What I don’t think the left understands is that it is not Trump that his supporters get behind. It is the concepts of personal freedom and liberties that he personifies. That is why the Democrats are going to cram in as much of their agenda as they can before they lose control again. And they will: 75 million outraged voters will speak again in 2022.