The Falsehoods Biden Keeps Telling Is the president dishonest or just confused? James Freeman
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-falsehoods-biden-keeps-telling-604c4fb4?mod=opinion_lead_pos12
Give President Joe Biden credit for consistency. For the entirety of his term he has relentlessly and falsely claimed that the economy was a shambles when he took office. His latest deceptions portray the raging inflation he did so much to inflict on Americans as a pre-existing condition. “For the second time in less than a week, President Joe Biden falsely claimed Tuesday that the inflation rate was 9% when he began his presidency,” writes CNN’s Daniel Dale. He adds:
Biden’s claim that the inflation rate was 9% when he became president is not close to true. The year-over-year inflation rate in January 2021, the month of his inauguration, was about 1.4%.The Biden-era inflation rate did peak at about 9.1% – but that peak occurred in June 2022, after Biden had been president for more than 16 months.
Not close to true is an apt description of the Biden economic message. Over the years some media folk have tried to portray Mr. Biden’s tall tales as evidence of grandfatherly charm. Folksy or not, he has been remarkably consistent in making false claims about the state of the economy when he took office.
His inauguration occurred during a stretch of fast growth and low inflation. Real GDP was growing at an annual rate of better than 5% during the quarter he took office. It has grown more slowly in the years since and of course with the additional plague of rising prices.
This is not just an issue of deceptive rhetoric. The deceptions of 2021 actually helped cause the resulting inflation. That’s because Mr. Biden’s false portrayal of an economy in distress was the justification for the spending spree he initiated despite warnings from prominent Democratic economists. The bogus claims have had highly destructive consequences.
The volume of falsehoods on this particular subject certainly suggests a pattern of dishonesty. But to be fair, the Biden Justice Department’s special counsel Robert Hur has reported his conclusion that Mr. Biden suffers from a memory problem so severe that the president could not be successfully prosecuted despite evidence of willful violations of law.
The latest Biden falsehoods on a subject of great importance to the people of this country raise again the question of why Justice decided to let him walk. Mr. Biden holds a rather important job for someone with cognitive challenges.
No one is expecting Justice to reconsider. But given the obvious attention the inflation issue receives and the centrality of the value of our currency to everyone’s lives, could a healthy adult who is reasonably well-informed about the issues of the day honestly think the inflation rate was 9% when Joe Biden took office?
Whether one ascribes the Biden inability to reckon with the facts of the economy to declining faculties or dishonesty, the message to voters is clear. Don’t expect better policies from a man who cannot grasp the reality of his failures or simply chooses to lie about them.
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