Performance of economy fails to match Biden's claims

Wednesday marked the one-year anniversary of the Joe Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act, a major piece of economic legislation US President Joe Biden signed into law.

Earlier, Biden declared that the latest economic data "proves that our policies are serving American families", but wages have not kept pace with inflation in 20 of the last 22 months.

The arithmetic here is simple. Since Biden took office, the US people's wages have increased by about 12 percent, while inflation is up 15 percent. Since Biden took office, the average US family's income has dropped by about $5,000. And the average US family is spending $709 more a month than it did two years ago.

True, unemployment is low today in the US, and the job market is strong. But the White House has been touting a chart showing Biden as the greatest job creator of all time, even better than Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton or Donald Trump. But that takes into account most of the jobs created under Trump, which have been wiped out by the economic shutdown during the coronavirus pandemic. In other words, Biden is taking credit for the millions of jobs that have returned since businesses reopened.

The Biden administration says domestic oil production is on track for record highs. But that's not the case. A new study conducted by the University of Chicago found that the US could produce about 2 million more barrels of oil per day if it stuck with Trump's pro-US energy production policies. The current price of oil is $80 a barrel.

That means Biden's war on fossil fuels is costing the US economy $160 million a day. At the same time, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to its lowest level in 30 years.

And even though auditors have kept saying that the Biden administration's efforts to reduce the budget deficit were a Pinocchio lie, Biden has repeated the lie week after week. Over the past 12 months, the budget deficit has exceeded $2 trillion.

Biden has recently crowed about gas prices of $3.39 a gallon. Yes, that's a big improvement from $5 a gallon of gas at this time last year. But by the time Trump left office, gas prices were just $2.49 a gallon.

The Biden administration's public relations machine is a master at twisting and torturing data until it hears what it wants to hear. To the dismay of the Biden team, most polls show that two-thirds of US people think the economy is in a worse shape than it was a few years ago.