Committees are announced, national efforts and initiatives too. President Biden convenes a global supply chain discussion and camera lenses flash. What we see, or fail to see, is that even if this administration had the right experts and the right knowledge, they’re on a reactive, too-little, too-late trajectory.
It’s clear not only that they are overmatched and underprepared, but that the very steps they intend to take at a broader policy level will only exacerbate our supply chain crisis. Specifically, if you want to help alleviate a trucker shortage and the labor shortages plaguing small businesses around the country, you wouldn’t pass a legislative package full of additional entitlements. You wouldn’t vote to extend a universal basic income provision formerly known as the child tax credit. This is different than federal interventions in prior eras, this time the money hits your checking account – direct from Uncle Sam to you. “Ask not” has become “ask often and please remit payment posthaste.”
If the goal is to stabilize energy prices for Americans suffering at the pump, you wouldn’t travel to a climate conference with 30,000 bureaucrats to discuss ways to punish energy producers. You certainly wouldn’t seek to pass a bill on an entirely party line basis while publicly arguing with anti-capitalists over how much to punish America’s oil and gas producers. And even if the “moderates” win, you wouldn’t consider it very moderate to incentivize those companies not to open up production by adding costly climate controls.
Joe Biden is driving America towards the same renewable-first policies that have left Europe so vulnerable to Putin. Biden’s signature environmental policy moves – killing the Keystone pipeline and promised massive clean energy incentives – do nothing to alleviate the pressures Americans are facing at the pump. Nor does the extra handout fill a single grocery shelf. Nor does the federal government’s role as a major economic wildcard ease the anxiety of families now wondering if they’ll have presents under the tree.
You could give me an Avengers-level budget and a team of Hollywood scriptwriters, and I couldn’t plan an event like the Glasgow climate summit to make Biden seem more out of touch with the American consumer. As the Glasgow CoP (Conference of the Parties) kicks off, what we can plan on is photos of maskless bureaucrats and elected leaders partying afterwards as the elite meet and congratulate each other on their eliteness.
The pandemic that began an Era of Public Health Rule drove thousands and thousands of local businesses to ruin. The Era of Public Health Rule led to a Federal Government First economic policy. Their priorities, their spending, and their initiative is what steers the economy. Small businesses are an afterthought. Outmatched, outspent, outmaneuvered.
Today in Glasgow Biden signals this trend will continue through the holidays and into the New Year.
Jason Killmeyer is a counterterrorism and foreign policy expert specializing in emerging technology applications. Jason is the former Chief of Staff of Global Defense, Security & Justice at Deloitte Consulting LLP. He has a Master’s in Middle Eastern Studies with an M.A. thesis on post-invasion Iraqi politics from American University. Connect with him on Twitter here.