Joe Biden and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Sort-Of Press Conference

Presidentish Joe Biden shared the good news about the economy (maybe he’s off his meds) on Friday and very nearly held something like a brief press conference immediately afterward — and I’m here to briefly tell you what happened in order to spare you from having to watch the thing.

Before we begin, a brief spoiler:

It was really a short campaign speech about how Republicans will ruin all the good works Biden has performed (seriously, he must be off his meds) in front of an adoring press who kept the questions strictly beanbag.

You’d probably guessed that already, hadn’t you?

Let’s start with the Big Lie — one of them, anyway — that Biden has cut the deficit. “The deficit fell by $1.4 trillion,” Biden claimed. “the largest one-year drop in American history.”

You know what’s funny? Math.

One reason for last year’s massive deficit was Biden’s massive, one-time “stimulus” payout known (euphemistically, one presumes) known as the American Recovery Plan Act. That one-time outlay was worth $1.9 trillion up front.

Despite that one-time charge, this year’s deficit only “fell” by $1.4 trillion.

In other words, Biden and the Democrat Congress tacked on another half a trillion in new debt-fueled spending last year — and that doesn’t include all the new spending baked into future years with the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill (that spends 91% on non-infrastructure) and the $400 billion Inflation Reduction Act (that doesn’t reduce inflation).

Biden didn’t cut jack, fat.

Wait — I take that back. But before I explain, you have to read what Biden had to say about what will happen if the GOP takes Congress after the next election.

“I will not cut Social Security. I will not cut Medicare no matter how hard they [Republicans] work at it,” he said. “They’re going to cut Social Security and Medicare.”

Never mind the fact that Biden can’t seem to tell whether he’s going to stop the Republicans from cutting Social Security and Medicare, or whether they’ll somehow do it over his dead brain.

But guess what? Biden did cut Social Security. Recipients will see a big 8.7% bump in next year’s payments — but that’s lower than the real rate of inflation. In other words, next year’s SS checks will buy less than this year’s, and this year’s bought less than last year’s.

Biden doesn’t need the GOP around to cut Social Security. He just needs to keep going with his inflationary policies.

But he wasn’t done lying about the GOP.

“On my watch things have been different,” Biden said — and that’s all too true, only in the exact opposite way he meant it. Republicans, he claimed, will “explode the deficit again.”

I don’t exactly trust the GOP to make any of the necessary, if painful, cuts to the spending explosion we’ve seen these last 32 months or so. But I also don’t see Republicans promising to pass the You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet Deficit Explosion Act of 2023.

We’ll probably see more of what happened after the GOP took Congress during Barack Obama’s reign: Zero moderation from the White House, resulting in a series of continuing resolutions instead of real budget-making.

The radicals are in charge of the White House, and they’re not going to budge on the budget.

Finally, Biden takes today’s Chutzpah Award with ease.