On the theme of which political team is working to make people’s lives better, Steve Benen considers House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s floor speech from Thursday night into Friday. Much of it was bonkers, as TPM noted. But Benen wants to seriously consider MCarthy’s attempt at a Reaganism:
“This isn’t an image of a thriving nation. It’s the image of a country that is clearly on the wrong track. Are we better off today than we were 10 months ago? No.”
Benen offers, you know, actual metrics:
Ten months ago, the unemployment rate was 6.3 percent. Now, it’s 4.6 percent. Ten months ago, the public saw a report that the economy had just lost over 300,000 jobs the previous month. Now, job growth is soaring and is on pace to create nearly 7 millions this year.
What’s more, the U.S. economic recovery is strong, we’re the only advanced economy on the planet to have a higher GDP now than before the pandemic began.
Ten months ago, Covid-19 infections were vastly worse, as were hospitalizations and fatalities. Ten months ago, a tiny percentage of the population had been vaccinated.
Ten months ago, the United States fell short of a peaceful transition of power for the first time in its history. Ten months ago, the United States still had thousands of troops in harm’s way in Afghanistan. Ten months ago, the United States’ international standing and credibility was in desperate need of improvement.
Indeed, the world’s opinion of the U.S. was up “significantly” by spring. By October, Gallup’s Rating World Leaders poll finding of 49% for Joe Biden tied “the previous record high set under former President Barack Obama” after hitting record lows under Donald Trump’s presidency.
While infrastructure money is in the pipeline, it could take months before people’s pocketbooks sense the impact of the $1 trillion in federal spending. “Shovel-ready,” a term popularized in 2009 for projects funded by Barack Obama’s $800 billion stimulus package, was more marketing than reality. Only a fraction of that funding went to transportation infrastructure projects By 2010, Obama admitted, “there’s no such thing as shovel-ready projects.” But signs posted along highways at least reminded voters Washington was working to improve their commutes.
And today? McCarthy would have voters believe him rather than their lyin’ eyes, the data, the normalizing, the vaccinations, and the job growth. The general fractiousness of our politics may take longer to improve than for annual inflation stop eroding the 4.9% growth in average earnings over the past year.
Even so, McCarthy’s lame attempt to evoke Reaganism after Trump and the GOP put the final nails in its coffin was particularly pathetic.
Congressman, I was old enough in 1980 to vote for Ronald Reagan (I didn’t). Congressman, you’re no Ronald Reagan.
UPDATE: Minutes ago.