Soon, the 2022 midterm campaigns will begin in earnest and the Biden record is on the ballot. Republicans feel ready to “pounce” on issues such as law and order, K-12 education, and the economy, as outlined by Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), chair of the Republican Conference, on “Sunday Night in America” with Trey Gowdy. Meanwhile, an allied group is warning Democrats that voters aren’t able to name any of the Biden administration’s accomplishments.
Politico obtained a strategy memo from Unite the Country delivered in June after focus groups were held in crucial swing states. It warned Democrats that they could face midterm losses unless they can effectively articulate the need for the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan and Biden’s plans for infrastructure and families in the American Jobs Act and American Families Plan. Republicans should welcome this strategy with open arms, as there are plenty of things in these bills that no Americans want. Even Unite the Country knows this, though they frame the Republican messaging as “misinformation.”
“Unfortunately, the [American Rescue Plan] and these other proposals remain worryingly undefined in the public consciousness and voters are primed with misinformation that helps Republican justify their opposition,” the memo reads. “Democrats must communicate much more aggressively to define success for the ARP and to explain why it is important to pass the American Jobs Act and the American Families Plan.”
Perhaps this advice is where the ridiculous “Republicans voted against funding the police” narrative originated. Even the Washington Post gave that claim three Pinocchios. When press secretary Jen Psaki made that claim, she explained that President Biden had told municipalities that they could use funds in the American Rescue Plan to improve law enforcement. Maybe it was an option.
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However, the only item she mentioned specifically was funding for the COPS program, a leftover from the 1994 Crime Bill and run by the Department of Justice, which focused on community policing. To date, it has spent $14 billion to help advance this model. It has been so effective that last summer we saw nationwide anti-police protests, and even President Biden and Vice President Harris made an entire commercial about how black Americans couldn’t safely leave their homes.
Polls show that majorities in both parties are concerned about increases in crime. The concern is even more significant in the black community. A former cop just won the Democrat primary in New York City, with large shares of that demographic in affected districts. A resolution to condemn the “defund the police” movement in the House did not receive a single Democrat vote.
There are other problems with the American Rescue Plan. Georgia, one swing state, lost more federal funding than any other state because its unemployment rate was so low. A new funding formula punished states that did not remain locked down and sent money to states with deficits, like New York and Illinois. It also flooded school districts with more money, even though they had not exhausted funds from the original stimulus under President Trump. This money is a gift to wildly unpopular teachers’ unions that kept children out of school for more than a year and just gave unabashed support to curricula using the critical theory lens.
It contained another giveaway to private-sector unions. For the first time in American history, taxpayers bailed out failing union pensions. The Biden administration continues to pay off the AFL-CIO, which was deeply involved in the “shadow campaign” to elect Joe Biden. According to Townhall contributor Gabriella Hoffman, the American Jobs Plan contains features of the union-backed PRO Act, which will eliminate 59 million freelance jobs in the economy.
The AFL-CIO bases its support for the American Jobs Act on the green economy that will supposedly result in millions of “good-paying union jobs.” This fiction is impressive since the only components of solar and wind that are American products are wind turbines made by General Electric. Solar panels, batteries, and the raw materials required to make them are a Chinese-dominated market. They are trading high-paying jobs in the natural gas industry for the fiction of these green jobs.
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Union leadership is selling out union workers for relaxed organizing rules to grow membership artificially and eliminate freelance work. If Republicans cannot compare this entire boondoggle to the “shovel-ready jobs” in the Obama administration, they do not deserve to win. We need to get back about the business of innovation and production, not retrofitting the 21st century to institutions built for government jobs programs for the 1930s. There are 9 million open jobs in the country right now.
The American Jobs plan includes eliminating what Democrats refer to as “exclusionary zoning.” It will strong-arm communities to eliminate single-family zoning and pressure them to build high-density, low-income housing. Currently, the Buckhead area of Atlanta is pursuing legislation to become its own municipality because of a plan in Atlanta to implement the Biden plan voluntarily. Minneapolis and the state of Oregon have already done it. Minneapolis burned last summer and Portland has a riot every few days.
Republicans must articulate the unpopular elements within the legislation. Biden’s poll numbers on immigration and the economy are all well below water. His only rating consistently above 50% comes from his pandemic management. He handed out the Operation Warp Speed vaccines using the Trump administration’s distribution plan. Not a huge win in the final analysis, and it should all be on the ballot in 2022.
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