As the midterm election clock ticks toward zero, President Joe Biden is increasingly becoming the kid no one wants to invite to the party. The situation has gotten so embarrassing for Biden that he is snapping at any reporter who has the audacity to ask about his lack of rallies or campaign events. After all, it’s only control of Congress that hangs in the balance.
Biden may be the center of the discussion, but it appears Democrats in battleground races don’t want him to be the center of attention. There’s a reason why.
It may seem like ancient history, but Biden’s key legislative “achievement,” the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is barely two months old. You might remember it as the pared-down version of his “Build Back Better” agenda that he couldn’t get passed through a Congress controlled by his own party. Biden was, and still is, proud of his IRA, but those candidates facing voters this year are less eager to talk about it.
For starters, Biden rebranded his radical bill as “inflation reduction” because he knew massive price hikes were first and foremost on the mind of struggling families. When Biden ran for President, inflation was at a miniscule 1.2 percent, but now that he is President, inflation has skyrocket to 8.2 percent, even after the IRA.
An “inflation reduction” bill that doesn’t reduce inflation, who could’ve seen it coming? Nearly everyone, that’s who.
Even before the ink was dry on the IRA only 1 out 4 Americans thought it would fix the problem. It appears that a bill sending $369 billion to the favorite cause of Biden’s eco-mega donors and empowering 87,000 IRS agents to snoop on your TurboTax forms was not the awesome party Biden and supporters thought.
Now, the candidates in battleground states who cast tie-breaking votes for the IRA have all but gone silent talking about it.
For example, Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona proudly supported the bill and called it “historic,” but strangely he hasn’t mentioned it a whole lot in nearly two months. What Senator Kelly has had to discuss is to rightfully answer for Arizona’s broken border with Mexico. In fact, it seems the only border Senator Kelly wants to close is Arizona’s state line to…Joe Biden.
In New Hampshire, Senator Maggie Hassan celebrated the IRA saying, “1,017 New Hampshire votes made the Inflation Reduction Act possible.” It was a reference to her very slim margin of victory in 2016. It looks like she now feels the IRA and Biden are a liability as she tries to convince voters to send her back to Washington. Not only has Senator Sassan not posted about the IRA by name in a while, she is also shunning Biden in embarrassing fashion. When asked directly if she would like Biden to head to her home state to help her campaign, her response was “my job is to be an independent voice for New Hampshire.” Ouch.
Talk is cheap. In a 50-50 Senate, any one member – including Kelly or Hassan – could have stopped this monstrosity from moving forward.
Biden has spent the last 14 month underwater in terms of his support and it’s no surprise that it started to happen as gas prices began to choke family budgets. We’ve all watched in disbelief as Biden has deflected blame, begged foreign pariahs and used our strategic petroleum reserve as a strategic political reserve. Diesel fuel is still above $5 a gallon and our nation’s stockpile of the fuel is down to just 25 days.
Sadly, that only scratches the surface of Biden’s man-made energy failures, but it provides a clear picture that Americans should see. Battle-ground politicians who supported these failures when they thought there were no political consequences need to stop treating us like we have short memories.
Whenever you get sticker shock at the pump. Whenever you have to shell out more at the grocery store. Whenever you worry about how you're going to make ends meet with your heating bill. Remember, it's a man-made crisis and Joe Biden, along with his supporters in the Senate, made it.
Larry Behrens is the Communications Director for Power The Future, a non-profit that advocates for America’s energy workers. You can find him on Twitter @larrybehrens or you can email him: larry@powerthefuture.com.
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