One-party rule is failing Americans

If there’s one word that defines President Biden’s first year in the White House, it’s “crisis.” Perhaps sensing a future defined by crisis, President Biden predicted during his inauguration speech “We will be judged, you and I, for how we resolve the cascading crises of our era.”

There’s surely no shortage of crises to judge President Biden on, as well as his Democratic partners in Congress who, together, have had complete control in Washington for a year now.

Americans face the highest levels of inflation since 1982. Inflation is effectively a tax increase on every family. While wages have increased, they have failed to keep pace with the rate of rising prices in eight out of the first eleven months of Biden’s presidency. As a result, the average worker has lost the equivalent of two paychecks.

Instead of relieving the inflation crisis, Democrats have poured fuel on the fire. Analysis from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that the $1.9 trillion federal relief package, that was poorly focused on the pandemic, contributed to the rise of inflation. Despite the warnings from economists, President Biden continues to ask Congress to approve spending trillions of tax dollars on more wasteful programs that will make inflation even worse.

While the Democrats’ agenda over the past year has supplied inflation, it has failed to deliver the jobs that were promised. In fact, there have been 1.1 million fewer jobs created than what Biden promised when Congress passed his so-called stimulus last March. Across the country, we are approximately three million jobs short of where our economy was in 2019 following the passage of the Trump tax cuts. President Biden’s boast of job growth are unconnected to reality: when government is responsible for nine million people losing their jobs due to shutdowns, it is not a “win” when six million people finally are able to get back to work.

After one year of one-party rule, Americans are feeling the pain at every turn.

The average price for a gallon of gas today in California is $4.65 according to AAA. When Biden took office, the average price here was $3.35. That’s nearly a 40% increase every time you fill up. While Biden has made it harder to produce American energy, he’s begged oil producing countries in the Middle East to send us more. By appeasing the radical left’s demands to stop domestic energy production, Americans are paying more at the pump, and we’re sending jobs and money to foreign countries.

The crisis at our southern border has exploded under President

Biden. Over the past year close to two million illegal immigrants were apprehended crossing the border. Countless others have come across without being caught. Our border patrol agents are overwhelmed.

President Biden’s open borders policy is not his only decision that has put Americans in greater danger. The manner in which we pulled U.S. troops out of Afghanistan was one of the worst foreign policy blunders in history. Thirteen American heroes had their lives cut short, including Lance Corporal Kareem Nikoui from Norco and Corporal Hunter Lopez from the Coachella Valley. We abandoned our allies and we left Americans behind despite the president’s promise that wouldn’t happen. In the most public way possible, our adversaries in China and Russia saw a weak American President who was more worried about a political talking point than he was in our national security.

Then-candidate Biden’s pledge to “shut down the virus” will go down as one of the emptiest promises in history. Tragically, more Americans died from COVID-19 in 2021 than in 2020. Today, we are experiencing the highest levels of infection of the pandemic.

By any objective judgement, Democrats have failed again, again, and again.

Ken Calvert represents the 42nd Congressional District.