It's Time to Excise the Cancer

"It will take time to feel the full impact of all that my Administration has done," Presidentish Joe Biden claimed in Wednesday night's farewell address to the nation. "The seeds we planted will grow and bloom for decades to come."

I'm afraid he's right, for once.

"Cancer. He's describing cancer," Dan Franck quipped on X in response — and it's already begun to metastasize. Biden came into office promising — and then delivering — a spending and regulatory spree that made Barack "Mr. Stimulus and Obamacare" Obama look as parsimonious as John Adams. Well, according to the latest figures, Biden's chickens are coming home just in time to roost on Donald Trump's watch.

On Biden's watch — at Biden's insistence, really — Washington's finances and the country's economic health are both in collapse.

This is the worst start to a fiscal year EVER:
- Spending is up 10.9%
- Receipts are down 2.2%
- FYTD deficit up 39.4% at $711 billion
They're handing Trump a ticking time bomb... pic.twitter.com/q1DYC1Ep5q
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) January 15, 2025

Fed Chair Jerome Powell didn't engineer a soft landing as he gave Biden and the Democrats a delay in reckoning. It didn't do them any good on election day, but as you can see, Trump's final term is littered with deadly landmines.

Those are the seeds Biden planted — poison ivy where once a lush lawn grew.

That's his legacy. That's what Trump must somehow undo.

Because I'm filled with love for my fellow humans of all political stripes [I just choked on that, Steve —Editor], I would be remiss if I didn't bring the fairness and balance, and remind you of the positive parts of Biden's legacy.

[awkwardly long thoughtful pause]

OK, I think I have something.

By hanging on long past his sell date and well into the campaign season, Biden accomplished two things of lasting importance. First, by becoming the first presidential nominee forced off the ticket in an undemocratic intra-party coup, Biden sullied his reputation in a way that even the friendliest historians might find it impossible to hide. Biden's legacy is less than a one-and-done failure, like Jimmy Carter or George H.W. Bush.

Second — and even better — was Biden's endorsement of his vice president, Kamala Harris, as his replacement, effectively short-circuiting Democrat hopes of holding an "insta primary" that might have produced a winnable candidate. Instead, Biden gave the country an unprepared mid-wit with just 107 days to put together a campaign. Not only did Biden screw the party that had screwed him, he effectively ended Harris's national aspirations.

I guess that's three things. So we've got that going for us, which is nice.

Here's where it gets tricky. All snide commentary about the "positive" parts of Biden's legacy aside, I keep reminding readers here and at Instapundit that plenty of Bidenflation and ruinous regulation is still baked into the system.

Undoing that damage — treating the cancerous growth before it fully metastasizes — is the job we hired Donald Trump to do, and he's going to need all of our help to drain the malarial swamp that's choking the country. If you're one of our PJ Media/Townhall VIP members, you're doing your part to keep alternative media alive. We launched VIP in 2019 to protect your alternative conservative media (and our jobs!) from Big Tech censorship.

Now it's the Swamp that will try to shout us down as Trump and the DOGE boys perform the necessary work of derailing Biden's gravy train before it derails us all. So if you aren't already a VIP member, there's never been a better time than now to join the fight. Our POTUS47 promotion is good for 74% off all the exclusive content, podcasts, and video live chats that come with your VIP membership. And I swear I thought 74% off was a typo when Paula Bolyard told me about it.

If you can't join us right now, I totally get it. But if you can, we'd sure appreciate your help when it's most needed.