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Seeing Through Hoaxes and Deceit Is the Opening to Find Truth and Real Progress

Originally published at Townhall

A key benefit of Americans going through unprecedented tough times is that it prompts people to rethink everything that doesn’t make sense. And that leads many to see that our most serious contemporary problems are the result of government actions and policies undertaken since the 2020 election. With the Biden administration, we now have government creating problems that negatively affect most everyone’s safety, security, and standard of living. The executive branch now constitutes a government against the people. 

There is clearly something fundamentally wrong about what is going down with outcomes associated with the unprecedented difficult time through which we have passed in the last three and a half years when elites like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Anthony Fauci and others get fabulously richer while the majority of Americans have become significantly poorer.  

With gross disparity of outcomes and the recognition that we have a government against the people, many are finally waking up and looking for solutions and truth in positions opposite and contrary to government recommendations and policies. People are pushing back and saying no to hoaxes and preferring what is proven to work—whether choosing natural gas to electric stoves, rejecting the claims of climate change that require radical change in farming practices with diminished output to facilitate acceptance of lab-created meat and bug-food, rejecting the treatment of viruses with unproven procedures and mRNA vaccinations, or embracing more expensive and less reliable wind and solar power and electric vehicles. 

The Inflation Reduction Act (IFA) signed into law a year ago—acclaimed as Joe Biden’s crowning legislative achievement—illustrates the government against the people phenomena. Rationalized on the grounds that it would provide economic stimulus, reduce inflation, reduce the deficit, and put the U.S. at the forefront in the fight against climate change, the IFA fails to accomplish any of those goals. In fact, it adds to our already unwieldy deficit and national debt, while providing subsidization to select businesses that enable owners getting rich. The bottom line is that the IFA increases inflationary deficit spending, while the jobs it creates may not be economically viable—being government-created around the green new deal hoax. 

To grasp the range of hoaxes and deceit we live with today that reflect divergence of what the Biden administration says and promotes with what outcomes and reality are, it’s worth surveying critical policy areas affecting every American: 

The Southern Border: Biden immediately stopped the southern border wall construction of his predecessor and simultaneously liberalized migrant entry—opening the floodgates to illegal entry. DHS Secretary Mayorkas repeatedly tells the American public, “The southern border is secure.”  The truth is just the opposite. Migrant encounters at the southern border starting in the first year of the Biden administration reached the highest level on record and continue to increase.

Inflation:  The Fact Sheet on President Biden’s Budget outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act claims to lower energy, water, and fuel bills for American families. The truth is just the opposite. Energy, water, and fuel bills have risen dramatically for all Americans in every region of the United States.

Foreign Policy: President Biden outlined his foreign policy vision at the outset in a speech, entitled, “America is Back.” The opposite proved true. Less than a month later, Biden was humiliated when his Secretary of State Blinken was blind-sided at his first summit, having no adequate response to his Communist Chinese counterparts’ charge that Joe Biden’s government was weak and illegitimate. The following year, Biden’s weakness was reinforced with his colossal leadership failure in withdrawing from Afghanistan, which abandoned over 1,000 Americans and Afghan allies and $85 billion in advanced U.S. military equipment, and led to 180 casualties by terror attacks at the Kabul airport—including the death of 13 U.S. military servicemen. 

Crime: On the domestic front, in response to the surge in crime, President Biden says that “violent criminals must be taken off the street.”  In practice, his administration has done nothing to strengthen law enforcement while continuing an open border policy with full knowledge that many migrants have criminal backgrounds with some being released from jails to make the journey to cross America’s southern border. White House spokespeople also acknowledged on “PBS Newshour” in June of 2021, that “President Biden is not focused on arresting his way out of this problem.”  Violent crime has dramatically increased across the country every year of the Biden administration.

Education: On public school education policy, the official Biden Fact Sheet commits to: “in-person instruction; accelerating academic achievement; and building school communities where all students feel they belong.”  However, between May 2021 and November 2022, there were nearly 90 incidents in 30 states that involved the FBI and local police arresting 59 people at local school board meetings—mostly parents charged over disruptions protesting LGBTQ bathroom rights, ‘obscene’ library books, and attempts to teach children about systemic racism in America.  Already underperforming in Biden’s first year, public school academic achievement scores continue to deteriorate. 

Defense: On defense spending, Biden has raised the budget to keep up with inflation, but America is less secure with every passing year—with declining morale among the enlisted in all branches of the military, reflected by the worst recruiting shortfalls in 48 years. And while Biden is on target to spend $100 billion on supporting Ukraine, the priority of funding the defense of the homeland goes neglected—specifically in vital areas: modernizing our nuclear defense capabilities; upgrading cyber defense capabilities; and hardening the electric power grid against terrorist and super electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack.

Every decision-maker in family households and in business knows that resources are limited and must be spent with priority in order of what’s important and essential. There is something fundamentally wrong with a government that spends money on hoaxes while neglecting what is vital for its people. Increasingly, citizens are recognizing that much of what the present government actually does protects hidden agendas of power, money and corruption that are not aligned with the needs of people who are voting. Did we get fooled once in the accounting of the 2020 election? Did we get fooled a second time in the 2022 election? The answer better not be getting fooled yet again in 2024, as it might be America’s last election. 

Scott S. Powell

Senior Fellow, Center on Wealth and Poverty
Scott Powell has enjoyed a career split between theory and practice with over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and rainmaker in several industries. He joins the Discovery Institute after having been a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution for six years and serving as a managing partner at a consulting firm, RemingtonRand. His research and writing has resulted in over 250 published articles on economics, business and regulation. Scott Powell graduated from the University of Chicago with honors (B.A. and M.A.) and received his Ph.D. in political and economic theory from Boston University in 1987, writing his dissertation on the determinants of entrepreneurial activity and economic growth.