Clemens: What has caused immigration, inflation crises?
Bill Clemens is a resident of Magnolia.
Alternative realities have millions of Americans believing that the Biden administration is responsible for four years of the inflation and immigration crises. Hopefully, it is not too late for the American people to take off their blinders to start pursuing fact from fiction. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, advised the American people “that President (Donald) Trump failed to close the border during every year of his presidency” and added that “millions were crossing over the border during those four years” (source: Oliver O’Connell of the Independent).
I do remember that Trump’s primary strategy to curb immigration was to separate children from their parents to scare them into not trying to cross the border. That immoral strategy resulted in 1,000 children still separated from their parents. This inhumane Trump policy was overturned soon after President Joe Biden took office. Congress has not taken up any bill on comprehensive immigration reform since 2014, when the bipartisan senators in the Gang of 8 sent the bill down to the House of Representatives to be passed. The House, under John Boehner’s leadership, refused to bring the bill to the floor to be voted on.
Recently, the Biden administration agreed to a bipartisan comprehensive immigration bill introduced by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. He is a distinguished Southern Baptist minister. He and his colleagues worked on this bill for months. The Democrats made more than a few concessions to get the bill passed into law. Sen. Lankford was, to put it mildly, “very heartbroken” when his party “obeyed” Trump’s wishes not to pass the bill because Trump feared it would help the Democrats in the upcoming 2024 election. Trump also mischaracterized Vice President Kamala Harris’ role regarding the border. She was “tasked” to keep visiting the Central American countries to find out the root causes of mass immigration and develop a plan to alleviate the problems. She was able to elicit American business communities to contribute $5 billion to aid these countries, as a startup in their hopeful transition to become modern democratic societies. People were fleeing these countries due to violence, poverty, drug cartels and dictatorships infringing on their dignity. Harris was “never tasked” to be the border czar, contrary to false allegations.
Regarding the “inflation crisis,” the COVID-19 virus stayed around so long (38 months) that it inevitably led to inflationary pressures. Originating in Wuhan, China, in December 2019, the World Health Organization declared this outbreak a pandemic (defined as a worldwide spread of a new disease) in March 2020, when the Trump administration was in its last year in office. Biden inherited the pandemic when he took office in January 2021. The World Health Organization “declared an end to the pandemic” as a global health emergency May 5, 2023, 29 months into Biden’s presidency. Former President Trump said, “The outbreak would end when the weather became warmer.” Now, we are in the 17th month of recovery from a disease that kept everyone cloistered in their homes for the first 29 months of Biden’s presidency. There were more than 1 million deaths in the United States, and we could have still been counting if strict measures were not taken to eliminate this deadly virus. Staying at home, vaccines and masking policies worked.
To alleviate the hardships being endured by the American people, the “American Rescue Plan” was passed by the Biden administration in March 2021, 12 months after the outbreak. Biden, like Trump, issued $1,200 stimulus checks to families whose livelihoods were disrupted all that time. Biden’s bill also extended unemployment compensation and loans to businesses, and funded vaccine distributions to pave the way to recovery. The economy had been shattered. Biden made sure to take care of the people to help them as much as possible to recover from their losses. Supply lines are still in the process of catching up to delivering goods and services to us.
The shortage of goods and supplies due to backed-up supply lines forced thousands of businesses to raise their prices to make up for their losses. (Some big corporate businesses continue to price gouge and not pay their fair share of taxes.) Shortages and gouging will always result in inflation. Americans’ stimulus checks were spent rapidly, and overdrawn credit cards for goods and services resulted in heating up the economy. The Federal Reserve had to keep raising interest rates to slow down this excessive spending, which created even more shortages of goods and services. Inflation continued to spiral. The Federal Reserve recently lowered interest rates 50 basis points, signaling that inflation is starting to get under control. The stock market continues to make record gains.
However, “global warming” continues to put a damper on continued progress. Wildfires, hurricanes, droughts and massive flooding are increasing, and oceans continue to warm. Farm crops are being destroyed worldwide. The resulting scarcity of goods will again result in inevitable “inflationary trends.” Renewable energy sources in place of fossil fuels must be implemented at a much faster pace to avoid worldwide hunger. The United States’ “Green Energy Bill” has been leading the way as a model for all other countries to emulate.
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
