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Weekly Updates

Washington Update: The War on Words

From the Desk of Rob Wittman

Friend,

Over two weeks have passed since President Biden delivered a Joint Address to Congress, marking the culmination of his first 100 days as President. Throughout those first 100 days and since, it has become clear that the Biden Administration and their Democratic allies in Congress found a new strategy that has come to define President Biden’s time in office. Whenever the Administration introduces a new idea or faces some new challenge, they’ve begun changing the definitions of words to suit their political needs.  

One such word is “unity.” President Biden promised unity on the campaign trail, and the American people thought they knew what that meant. But it’s now clear that when President Biden says unity, what he really means is conformity. Even as we try to work with the Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress, they shut out anyone who disagrees, effectively denying millions of Americans -in this case, those represented by Republicans- the voice they deserve.  

This has become so common that they are now even changing the definition of “bipartisan.” Under the Biden Administration’s new definition, a bill is bipartisan, even if no Republicans vote in favor, even as they deny Republicans any say in the process.

If there is one area where we should have bipartisan consensus, it’s the crisis along our southern border. Democrats and Republicans agree that the national security and public health crisis presented by the overwhelming surge of migrants invited by the Biden Administration’s action is unacceptable and untenable. But now, the Biden Administration continues to desperately (and unsuccessfully) dodge calling this a crisis, even after President Biden handed responsibility for the border over to Vice President Harris.

When they’re not changing definitions to cover for their mistakes, the Biden Administration and their Democratic allies are changing definitions to advance radical, far-left ideas. Before becoming President, Joe Biden called court-packing a “bonehead idea.” But now, after becoming President, it’s no longer called “packing the court,” but “expanding the court.” And apparently, it’s no longer a “bonehead idea” but worthy of an official commission’s consideration, which is what the Biden Administration has now proposed.

Worse still are the massive spending packages proposed under the guise of popular words such as “rescue” or “infrastructure,” which broaden that priorities definition to encompass wish lists of left-wing political priorities.

After all, the “American Rescue Plan” only spent 9% on actual COVID-19 relief, and President Biden’s infrastructure package only spends 13% on real infrastructure, one must wonder how much of the American Families Plan will actually go to American families.

But if there’s one word that has lost the most meaning, it’s the word “trillion.” 1,000,000,000,000 is such a large number that it is genuinely difficult to comprehend. Now, President Biden has proposed spending not just $1,000,000,000,000 but $6,000,000,000,000 in his first 100 days alone. While that money is tied together in those massive spending packages, let’s call that $60,000,000,000 per day for argument's sake.

The historic and unprecedented 2009 $831,000,000,000 stimulus package passed by President Obama and Vice President Biden would now be just two weeks of Biden Administration spending. Now, in the context of President Biden’s first 100 days, his infrastructure package would spend the equivalent of just under 2 days of spending in fixing roads and bridges, 1 day for fixing American railroads, and less than 2 days on rural broadband, but 33 days of spending on the priorities of the Green New Deal. And in his “rescue” plan, President Biden only devote about 1 day of spending on COVID-19 testing, contact tracing, and vaccine distribution while directing almost 31 days of spending on extraneous political pork. With the American Families Plan, President Biden has proposed another package, this time 30 days of spending, to expand government control throughout every aspect of our lives.

These are just a few examples, but it’s clear how the Biden Administration is spending their time and your money. We cannot continue at this pace. If President Biden is serious about helping American families, then he cannot allow those same families to be crushed by a mountain of debt, mortgaging our children’s future and crowding out spending on priorities down the road. It seems President Biden’s answers are always massive spending bills expanding the government’s role in your life. But the bills are coming due as President Biden proposes tax hike after tax hike, and inevitable inflation further threatens America’s desperately needed economic recovery.

We all saw the success of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act enacted by a Republican-led Congress in 2017. These tax cuts created one of the strongest economies America has ever seen. Rather than returning to those heights, President Biden would limit our economic potential by repealing them and returning to the previous status quo. Worse still, President Biden would raise our corporate tax rate higher than that of Communist China’s, even as studies show much of this hike will fall squarely on the shoulders of working-class Americans. In turn, this tax hike would incentivize companies to move jobs to China, further limiting our economic recovery.

This wouldn’t be President Biden’s only gift to China. Even as we stare down the threat of the Great Power Competition, President Biden has proposed cutting our defense budget from the Trump Administration’s projections. It’s a terrible step in the wrong direction as we so urgently need to grow our Navy to meet the demands of a hostile Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.

I hope these first 100 days are not indicative of what’s to come. I hope to see President Biden fulfill his promise of unity by working cooperatively with Republicans in Congress to meet the mutually agreeable needs of the American people. We can do great things when we work together, and I sincerely hope to see many great things to come.

Sincerely,
Rob