Put Y'all Back in Chains, page 6
BBB also proposes what the White House calls the largest climate change initiative in American history. This “Green New Deal” includes billions in payments and subsidies for wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars. Making sure to make a left turn into impoverished communities, the plan creates a Clean Energy and Sustainability Accelerator agency to invest in projects around the country, while delivering 40 percent of the benefits of investment to disadvantaged communities. BBB also included generous affordable housing grants, expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to include an additional 17 million Americans, and provided new and expanded availability of the school lunch program.
BBB dramatically expands the role of Washington in healthcare administration. This would mean billions paid in prescription drug grants as well as billions more in grants for insurance premiums—and let’s not forget the billions in hearing benefits to Medicare. Although loved by the hospital and insurance industry, the costs for the taxpayer were staggering. The health provisions (not including Medicare) would cost more than $550 billion.48 President Biden also pledged with BBB to create a Public Health Jobs Corps that would create 100,000 new jobs.49
The Congressional Budget Offices assessed the House-passed version and concluded that, if made permanent, this proposal would add $3 trillion to the deficit.50
You might imagine that this plan was everything and more that progressives could ever have dreamed they could achieve. But you’d be wrong. Senator Bernie Sanders argued that Democrats should take this opportunity to spend much more. He advocated a $6 trillion version of the “Build Back Better Act” that contained everything including immigration reform. In his words, it dealt with “the existential threat of climate change…the cost of prescription drugs, mak[ing] sure elderly people can chew their food because we expand Medicare to dental care, hearing aids and eyeglasses….”51
Like much of the President’s agenda, BBB fell flat. As in so many other instances, the White House refused to choose between getting some of its agenda passed by Congress or getting everything that it wanted, so it lost due to expensive and unpopular parts of the agenda, such as the Green New Deal, and in the end, BBB died.
Expansions of school lunch programs and greater medical benefits would likely have been quite well received by blacks who make up the base of President Biden’s party. But President Biden wouldn’t say no to the progressives on the other issues to just get those measures. For black America, dropping BBB, instead of taking much smaller pieces, was just another example of being pushed to the back of the political bus.
No Gasoline Left in the Tank
Next, President Biden embraced sharp new restrictions on America’s domestic oil and gas industry, along with a legion of growth-killing energy regulations that were very popular with progressives. Shortly after his inauguration, he rejoined the Paris Climate Accords, canceled the Keystone Pipeline, and committed to wholesale restrictions on the use of public lands for oil exploration.52
Not surprisingly, this led to a dramatic rise in gas prices at the pump. The price would reach $5 a gallon before receding.53 This woke policy backfired. A Rasmussen poll in the spring of 2021 revealed that a majority of Americans rejected climate regulation and wanted Washington to work to bring fuel prices down instead,54 and by the close of summer, fuel prices had become one of the leading concerns of the American people.
The high gas prices harmed blacks the most.55 As a 2021 Bank of America report indicated, the inflation spikes on food and energy hurt blacks more than other Americans, as blacks spend more of their money on energy, food, and household items—all of which are affected by out-of-control gas prices.56
It has often been said that energy is the lifeblood of the economy. Though access to electricity is taken for granted by most Americans, people are now having to pay considerably more for it—a trend that is likely to continue unless the Biden Administration reverses course.
Environmental Racism—A solution in search of a cause
Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says environmental justice “is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”57 This official explanation bears little correlation with the actual practice. Environmental justice is in reality a political tool exercised predominantly by progressive whites in the federal bureaucracy and in the academy.
From the outset, the Biden Administration recognized the potential of environmental justice to help propel its regulatory agenda, especially its climate policies. Environmental justice provisions were included in Biden’s Executive Order 14008, issued on January 27, 2021, just a few days after he took office. E.O. 14008 is entitled “Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad” and, among its many provisions, includes Sec. 219, which addresses environmental justice. It also created two new White House councils—the White House Environmental Justice Interagency Council and the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council—to address EJ implementation and solicit “expert advice and recommendations.”58 Under this directive, the federal government has sought to create environmental justice training academies and new mapping tools to highlight environmental racial disparities.59
As a result of the President’s order, environmental justice has been elevated to a position of unprecedented prominence in determining the decisions of the EPA.
Let Them Eat Cake
Under the guise of protecting racial minorities from being exposed to environmental hazards, these unelected and unaccountable activists promote policies that ultimately make those minorities they claim to work for wards of the state, thereby denying them full participation in society. For example, the Biden EPA hands out millions in grants to so called community activists to use in predominantly minority communities for “feel good” discussions.60 The very communities that are most beset by violent crime, high out-of-wedlock birth rates, and poor public schools can now at least hear lectures about environmental justice in their own neighborhoods. But lectures don’t alleviate poverty.
Washington should be working to direct new investments and private sector job creation in these communities, instead of highlighting them as places to avoid. Consider: if the EPA denies a permit for a manufacturing facility on the grounds that its carbon emissions would have a disparate impact on people of color, it will be blocking an important avenue these people have to improve their lives. In fact, the criteria used by the EPA to make environmental justice determinations are inherently subjective and can be enlisted to serve political objectives. For example, the more conservative parts of the country can easily be prevented from having new plants built, while allowing them in the more liberal areas.
Take the case of Flint, Michigan. For months, this Rust Belt city’s residents were unable to drink city water because it had been contaminated by lead, a potent neurotoxin that can cause brain damage in children. Flint’s aging, corroded underground iron water pipes had become a breeding ground for human pathogens, with the pipes corroded to the point that they all but prevented chlorine’s ability to disinfect the water. This disaster was ignored by city, state, and federal officials until it was too late. The contaminated water was eventually linked to seventy-two cases of Legionnaires’ disease that resulted in twelve deaths.61
In truth, these tragic results were the result of systemic incompetence by three levels of government that failed to address a problem that had been unfolding for years. The fact that the EPA, even then the lead agency on environmental justice, played such a prominent role in the Flint disaster is a reflection of the misplaced priorities of a wasteful and flawed program.
If you thought that we’d learned anything from Flint, take a look at Jackson, Mississippi. In early September of 2022, torrential rains caused Jackson’s waste-water treatment plant to be shuttered, leaving more than 150,000 residents (out of 160,000) without drinking water.62 For more than a decade, the waste water treatment plant had been the center of a political dispute over who should bear responsibility for its needed repairs. Jackson—which is 82 percent black—was able to fall through the cracks, even as Biden was bragging about “pushing investments to areas with high pollution levels and economic distress.”63
For nearly two years, the Biden White House ignored Jackson. Now that the treatment center has failed, instead of taking responsibility to fix the problem, the White House complains that the GOP legislature shouldn’t impose mandatory repair requirements on Jackson (designed to ensure that the repairs actually occur).64
A grave environmental injustice was inflicted on the residents of this majority black city at a time when federal environmental justice grants were being lavished on activist groups and an assortment of governmental entities around the country.
“Cancer Alley” in Louisiana is another case in point. In the 1990s, reports of high cancer rates in parishes stretching for eighty-five miles along the Mississippi River led to the area being dubbed “Cancer Alley.” Local petrochemical plants were seen as the likely cause, and the region’s substantial African American population was thought to be especially threatened by the plants’ emissions. The “Cancer Alley” narrative seemed to confirm the points Carol Browner was making at the time as she set about creating EPA’s environmental justice program. But when scientists at Louisiana State University Medical Center and the Louisiana Tumor Registry took a closer look, they found that people in “Cancer Alley” did not develop cancer any more often than the residents of the rest of South Louisiana, or even the rest of the nation.
These policies have already hurt working-class households, harming blacks the most.
DIE (aka diversity equity and inclusion) Before National Security
In yet another woke action, President Biden pushed the progressive Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion (DEI) agenda on the nation’s military. He nominated defense contractor Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense and had him initiate an extremism “stand-down” and DIE training for the entire Defense Department.65 Military service members wasted 5,889,082 man-hours going through this training.66
US Dept of Defense.67
As a payoff acknowledging the Left’s antipathy toward the military, this move did nothing for blacks. Yet, not only are blacks, and especially black men, over-represented in the military,68 but as an American Enterprise Institute study titled “Black Men Making it in America” revealed, military service is a significant tool of economic mobility for many black men.69 Wasting time on the stand-down and DEI training, instead of focusing on pay raises and new benefits, demoralizes servicemembers and threatens national security. The stand-down is in stark contrast to the Defense Department’s past record of opportunity for blacks. This training does promote the false impression that military service and extremism are linked. It will more likely make recruiting more difficult and cause some blacks to miss out on the amazing leadership skills they can acquire in service to the nation.
Virus Gonna Virus
Perhaps none of President Biden’s failed policies represented wokeness more than his COVID-19 policies. Throughout his first year in office, he pushed hard to continue COVID-19 mitigation policies that were ultimately shown to be destructive to the economy, set back the education of school children, and decimated the restaurant industry, all while crippling America’s supply chain.
With fanfare, President Biden signed a nearly $2 trillion COVID-19 bill in March 2021.70 He bragged that it was accomplished with no support from the GOP, and his bill sent a payment of $1,400 to almost every American, extended $300-per-week unemployment payments, and provided another $20 billion in vaccine payments, as well as $25 billion for rental and utility payment assistance.71 Perhaps the icing on the cake was the nearly $400 billion in grants to state, local, and tribal governments.72
Almost immediately, there were warning signs. Critics pointed out that almost half of the school funds to encourage classroom re-openings wouldn’t be spent until 2024.73 The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget identified more than $650 billion in non-pandemic-related funding. In fact, it included nearly $90 billion for union-supported pension plans alone.74
Perhaps the most significant outcome from this decision is the explosive inflation that hurts Americans and was a key driver of the Democrats’ rout in November 2021. The measure ended up being poorly targeted, used borrowed money, and ultimately did nothing to improve the nation’s long-term economic outlook.
After promising that our time with COVID-19 mitigation efforts would end around Independence Day75 and admitting that he didn’t have the power to issue a federal vaccine mandate, President Biden abruptly changed course.76
The reversal would prove to be devastating. While claiming to follow the science, his Administration pushed new COVID-19 policies that encouraged “COVID-19 passports”77 and lockdowns. Within a few months, polling showed that Americans, disheartened by the shift, now distrusted federal health agencies at record levels.78
Lawsuits were filed against the airline mask mandate, as well as against the vaccine mandate Biden ordered for large employers. Even military servicemembers filed suits against the DOD vaccine mandate.79 By early 2022, a CNBC poll showed that Americans disapproved of Biden’s handling of the pandemic, which had been one of his strongest areas of support up to that point.80
By 2022, the results were in: blacks were, once again, hardest hit. Even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention admitted that blacks lost their jobs at higher levels and consequently experienced elevated financial instability.81 Extended school closures created nutrition challenges for the students, disproportionately black, who relied on school lunches for meals.82 And perhaps worse, black students fell behind in math and reading.83 Of some 4.4 million students tested in third grade to eighth grade, black children lost the most ground academically, according to the NWEA (formerly the Northwest Evaluation Association).84
The federal vaccine mandate for government employees also affected blacks, who work for federal and state government agencies at higher levels than the population as a whole.85 President Biden’s order made it far easier for black government employees to lose their jobs due to behavior that wasn’t even related to the workplace, such as a requirement to send in COVID-19 testing results from home, despite the fact that Biden didn’t even direct federal employees to return to the workplace until April 2022.86
Charlie Foxtrot
Though blacks serve disproportionately in the military, Biden engaged in reckless decision-making with our military operations, damaging our nation’s reputation and that of our servicemembers.
Military service is a key means that blacks have used to reach the middle class for decades. Poor oversight of the military and America’s foreign policy undermines the attractiveness of military service. Biden’s managed to do both.
In the summer of 2021, President Biden abandoned Afghanistan without a plan, and in the disarray, thirteen American military servicemembers lost their lives. On August 31, 2021, readers of Bloomberg News awoke to this headline: “U.S. Withdrawal Leaves Afghanistan in Crisis and Uncertainty.”87 In one particularly desperate episode, Afghans desperate to flee their country ran along a departing U.S. Airforce transport plane and even clung to it as it taxied down a runway.88
President Biden was more interested in credit than in responsibility. In the summer of 2021, he explained, “I’m now the fourth United States President to preside over American troop presence in Afghanistan: two Republicans, two Democrats. I will not pass this responsibility on to a fifth.”89 The chaotic Afghanistan departure ended up being a disaster all around. President Biden robbed the White House of the political victory of achieving an exit that most Americans wanted, while sending the signal to U.S. adversaries that America can’t be trusted to keep its promises.
But wokeness overrode all. The State Department at one point even announced that the Administration would consider recognizing the odious Taliban, if it allowed a woman to be in the new government.90 In a stunning example of pride coming before a fall, mere months before the total collapse of Afghanistan, the State Department flew the gay pride flag over the Kabul embassy.91
This disaster isn’t just a humanitarian one for the people of Afghanistan. At the same time, the White House abandoned American citizens, many of whom have yet to be returned home. A 2022 U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee report indicated that more than 9,000 Americans were left behind.92 Meanwhile, President Biden has prioritized homing up to 30,000 Afghan refugees at military bases in the U.S.93
President Biden claimed that he’d largely followed the Pentagon’s advice, yet almost to a man the nation’s generals have denied this claim, stating that they warned him that withdrawal was not advisable.94 In testimony before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley and U.S. Central Commander General Kenneth McKenzie explained why they thought the withdrawal was a mistake.95
President Biden defended himself by telling the nation that “Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed, sometimes without trying to fight. If anything, the developments of the past week reinforced that ending U.S. military involvement in Afghanistan now was the right decision.”96 But these facts were known before the withdrawal order was given. President Biden has long been a skeptic of what America’s military could achieve in Afghanistan, going back to his time in the Obama White House.97
Rather than assess America’s military and national security needs, President Biden wanted to demonstrate his anti-war bona fides and achieve recognition in history. His withdrawal date was to be officially commemorated on September 11th.98
