Biden’s presidency has been a success

Because we have a Democratic president, Larry Roche thinks there has to be some negative news in there somewhere (guest opinion, Feb. 14) There is no credibility in anyone saying that Biden’s presidency has been a failure.

Mr. Roche criticizes our border policy, but Republicans can shoulder some blame for the problems because they seem to not want to fix them. The Republicans in Congress aren’t just exactly chopped liver; we expect them to govern. Among other things, they need to come up with a comprehensive immigration policy, something President Biden asked them to do. It is obvious that the GOP doesn’t want to solve immigration problems because they can use those problems as cudgel against Democrats in every election.

I don’t know how anyone can say the presidency is failure when we have full employment, there are 11 million jobs yet unfilled, and wages have been rising. Imagine what would happen with millions out of work and worried for their futures; we would have far worse problems than some inflation, and Mr. Roche’s financial investments would be far worse off.

Mr. Roche mentions the national debt; according to U.S Treasury data, 22.3% of the national debt was accrued during the Trump administration.

Mr. Roche mentions inflation, but dealing with it is much easier when you have jobs. Mr. Roche references an inflation rate of 6.5% (in January), but that rate is an annual rate, not the rate for one month. 6.5% divided by 12 months equals .54% inflation rate for January. Yes, natural gas prices are up some, but a lot of this is because of speculators and the war in Ukraine. We also had a particularly cold winter this winter, so we used more gas than we did last year, so of course our bills would be higher.

— Truman Sager, Windsor