2022 in review
Another year goes into the history books. This is the time that we review the past year and evaluate our country’s past achievements and failures, while looking to the new year.
We don’t have much to cheer about in 2022. The exception might be the administration’s support of Ukraine. By supporting Ukraine, we have shown Russia to be a paper tiger and easily defeated in a nonnuclear war.
At the same time, our country is being attacked from the southern border. This might not be a shooting war but we are being invaded by people who do not belong here. This problem is occurring because President Biden wanted to spite President Trump’s sealed border policy.
Because of Biden’s open border policy 70,000 American lives were lost last year (the population of Catoosa County) to chemical warfare. The chemical is fentanyl. Smugglers are bringing it in through our southern border. One thousand micrograms will stop your breathing and kill you. Even half of that will put you near death. Cocaine mixtures vary in size, but 250,000 micrograms is normally found in a typical dose. A mixture of only 2% fentanyl will put a person in the ground.
If Title 42 runs out, the southern border will be overrun and deaths will climb. Congress must continue Title 42 and close the border to save American lives.
Over 225,000 people in America died from Covid last year. This is due primarily because of low vaccine coverage and the slow acceptance of boosters. Omicron is taking off in the U.S. China is undergoing its first major Covid surge since the pandemic originated there three years ago. Will this be our future in 2023?
3,179 people were shot in mass shootings in 2022, resulting in 637 deaths. While the anti-gun lobby continues to try to disarm Americans, Florida State University Criminologist Professor Gary Kleck published a study in the use of defensive arms by American citizens. He concluded that the American people used a gun to defend themselves and others over two million times a year. This important statistic is ignored by Biden and the Left.
In 2022, we were faced by waves of steep price hikes as inflation hit 40-year highs. We saw higher prices because of slower shipping due to fractured supply chains and the high consumer demand. Inflation has spread into every facet of the economy. By the time Russia invaded Ukraine, causing huge price increases at the gas pump, we were already encountering large price hikes in essentials such as food and shelter.
We can expect inflation to turn into a recession in 2023, as economists forecast a recession starting early this year. Whether it’s deep or shallow is unknown at this time. The concept that the economy is contracting is pretty much the agreement among economists.
The high demand for workers has seen pay raises not seen in years. Regrettably, inflation had eaten away the buying power of those raises. Workers’ pay was $0 more than it was in 2020 in inflationadjusted dollars.
The Supreme Court allowed President
Trump’s taxes to be released to the public. This is a dangerous precedent. Our personnel tax records are supposed to be kept secret by the IRS. How long will it be before the IRS starts releasing the tax records of ordinary taxpayers? The one thing that stands out by this release, is how the rich can avoid paying taxes. Even Warren Buffet said that he paid less taxes than his secretary. The tax loopholes for the rich need to be eliminated.
$30,000 — that’s how much equity homeowners lost in 2022 because of house prices falling from their peak in 2021. Skyrocketing mortgage rates hit a two-decades high in November.
Your retirement savings took a hit, as the S&P index fell five weeks in a row. It was 2011 when this last happened. The stock market’s winning streak since 1928 officially came to an end in 2022.
Congress passed a $1.7 trillion bill that no one has read. This was a rush job by the Democrats. There is a lot of waste in this bill, which will hurt the financial strength of the country.
Frustration with the government surpassed all other single issues as the most persistent in the U.S. in 2022. The country’s divided political circumstances and the worrisome economy have affected the public’s satisfaction with the direction of the country.
There were some decent achievements in 2022. The launch and operation of the James Webb Space Telescope was the most groundbreaking scientific and technical achievement of the year. The telescope is providing masses of astronomical successes.
3.7 million children lived in households that fell below the poverty line. In an unprecedented move, extra cash from the child tax credit expansion was delivered directly to households with few strings attached, lifting millions of children out of poverty.
U.S. scientists revealed that experiments at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab achieved net energy gain in a controlled fusion reaction for the first time ever. This means that more energy was released than was used to originate the reaction, which is an essential step toward the goal of selfsustaining clean power generation.
Moderna’s MRNA cancer therapy is shown to reduce the risk of recurrence or death in melanoma patients when taken with Merck’s Keytruda anticancer drug. Tests show the effectiveness of MRNA therapies to treat cancer in clinical trials.
The Safer Communities Act beefs up background checks of 18- to 21-year-olds. It attempts to close the “boyfriend loophole” by keeping firearms away from dating partners who are convicted of abuse. Certain gun sellers are now required to register as licensees and required to perform background checks on potential buyers. We are finally starting to address the people problem rather than blame the gun.
Finally, C.S. Lewis said: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.”