Joe Biden Claims Economy Strong in First Speech After Announcing Reelection Bid
President Joe Biden said the economy is strong in his first speech after announcing a 2024 reelection bid Tuesday.
Speaking at North America’s Building Trades Unions Legislative Conference at the Washington Hilton, Biden claimed his “economic plan is working.”
Biden championed the far-left legislation enacted during the past two years, such as the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. “This is real progress. Like we have never seen before,” he said.
Among many initiatives, the Inflation Reduction Act created hundreds of billions of dollars in green energy slush funds for the federal government to dole out and boosted funding for the IRS by $80 billion.
Meanwhile, inflation soared. Biden’s 40-year-high inflation, on average, cost American households an extra $5,200 last year, or $433 per month, according to Bloomberg. In 2023, inflation has remained a systemic problem.
“I know folks are also struggling with inflation,” Biden noted.
Interrupted by chants in the crowd of “four more years,” Biden unequally compared his short economic record to previous, four-year completed term administrations.
“We’ve created more than 12 million new jobs. More jobs in two years than any president has made in a four-year term,” he said. “This is real progress. Like we have never seen before.”
“Not a joke,” he said, comparing his policies against those of Republicans. “Trickle-down economics doesn’t work.”
“Don’t take my word for it. [Let] me read from leftwing democratic papers,” he slurred, quoting headlines from the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.
“You and I together, we are turning things around, and we are doing it in a big way,” he said.
Polling does not support Biden’s economic claims. A recent Monmouth University poll found that American middle-class families, who are most likely to serve in the military and pay an overwhelming percentage of their income in federal taxes, believe they are not benefiting from the policies of the Biden administration.
According to a Tuesday Morning Consult State of Consumer Banking and Payments report, all U.S. consumers are financially worse off now than last year, with growing personal debt following Biden’s inflation.
Watch: Finish WHAT Job? Biden’s 2024 Announcement Lists No Accomplishments, Attacks “MAGA Extremists”
Joe Biden / YouTubeThe Expectations Index is also not in Biden’s favor. It has now remained below 80—the level associated with a recession within the next year—every month since February 2022, with the exception of a brief uptick in December 2022.
“While consumers’ relatively favorable assessment of the current business environment improved somewhat in April, their expectations fell and remain below the level which often signals a recession looming in the short-term,” said Ataman Ozyildirim, Senior Director, Economics at The Conference Board.
“Consumers became more pessimistic about the outlook for both business conditions and labor markets. Compared to last month, fewer households expect business conditions to improve and more expect worsening of conditions in the next six months,” he continued. “They also expect fewer jobs to be available over the short term. April’s decline in consumer confidence reflects particular deterioration in expectations for consumers under 55 years of age and for households earning $50,000 and over.”
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.
California Amazon delivery contractors vote to join the Teamsters as Amazon announces canceling of their contract
Work at Battle-Tested Strategies or another Amazon DSP? Tell us what you think about Amazon’s decision to cancel the contract, and what you think should be done about it. All submissions will be kept anonymous.
Delivery drivers employed by an Amazon delivery contractor in Southern California have joined Teamsters Local 396 after their employer recognized their right to organize, the Teamsters announced Monday. The 84 contractors work for Battle-Tested Strategies (BTS), an Amazon Delivery Service Partner (DSP) contracting out of the DAX8 facility.
Amazon responded to the announcement by declaring it had ended its contract with BTS. “This particular third party company had a track record of failing to perform and had been notified of its termination for poor performance well before today’s announcement,” stated Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards.
BTS workers held a rally at the DAX8 facility Monday in order to pressure the corporation to recognize their new bargaining representatives. “We want fair pay and safe jobs to be able to provide food for our families. We want to know we will make it home to our families at night after delivering Amazon packages in the extreme heat,” stated BTS worker Rajpal Singh at the rally.
The Teamsters were immediately recognized by BTS owner Jonathon Ervin because the contractor hoped it would force “Amazon to address his drivers’ concerns about heat and vehicle safety,” the Washington Post wrote. According to the union, workers will vote on a contract “in the coming weeks.”
Amazon employs thousands of private contractors as part of its Delivery Service Partners program. A 2021 CNN report said, “DSPs have about 20-40 vans and up to 100 employees. The DSP program has expanded to nine countries, creating 158,000 jobs at 2,500 DSPs, according to Amazon.”
According to the Post, “Amazon governs wage floors, routes, delivery schedules, revenue and maintains the right to terminate and discipline drivers” at its various DSPs. In addition, DSPs drive Amazon vans and wear the company’s logo on their clothes.
DSPs form an especially exploited section of Amazon’s workforce, having worse working conditions and pay than even the company’s own employees. The company regularly forces drivers to deliver as many as 400 packages in a typical shift, which can run over 10 hours a day.
The grueling pace delivery workers are subjected to has resulted in well-documented cases where drivers have been forced to relieve themselves in empty drink bottles and worse. A 2022 study published by the Strategic Organizing Center found that DSP drivers had a one-in-five injury rate in 2021, a nearly 40 percent increase in such incidents over 2020.
“Amazon has designed its DSP program such that it can maintain extensive control over DSPs’ operations and employees, yet dodge responsibility for the human toll of its intense productivity demands,” the SOC report noted.
The vote to join the Teamsters comes amid a growing struggle of logistics workers in the United States and internationally. Several hundred Amazon workers at the company’s Coventry, England, facility last week walked out in protest of miserably low wage increases as inflation in the United Kingdom is still in double-digit figures.
The decision by Amazon to cancel the contract for BTS is a reactionary assault on workers’ basic democratic rights and should be opposed by all workers. However, Amazon delivery drivers will not find in the Teamsters bureaucracy the means to improve their conditions. Rather, the union apparatus will work quickly to establish the same sort of corrupt, incestuous ties with management that it enjoys at other unionized workplaces.
In the United States, the contract for nearly 350,000 United Parcel Service (UPS) workers organized in the Teamsters expires at the end of July. UPS workers are demanding better pay, job protections, safety and the elimination of a lower paid hybrid warehouse-driver position, which was imposed against the membership’s will in the last contract. The last UPS contract in 2018 contains massive concessions, particularly on delivery drivers but was unilaterally imposed by the union in spite of the fact that it was rejected by a majority of workers.
UPS drivers, in fact, face similar working conditions as Amazon drivers. A 2019 NBC report notes, “[d]espite their union protections, drivers across the country described a culture of intimidation and retaliation at UPS that keeps them quiet even when their lives could be at risk.”
During last summer’s record-setting heatwave, numerous stories emerged detailing the harrowing situation facing UPS drivers. In June 2022, Esteban Chavez, Jr., a 24-year old driver collapsed and died inside his delivery vehicle as temperatures reached into the triple digits in the van. These conditions have been routinely ignored by the Teamsters leaders, who continue to allow UPS to avoid installing climate control inside delivery trucks.
Tellingly, the union has been quiet following Amazon’s announcement that it would discontinue working with Battle-Tested Strategies. To the extent that it will have any strategy at all to respond to it, it will be through backdoor negotiations with Amazon and BTS management to try to re-assure them that they have nothing to fear, coupled with appeals to the corporate-controlled courts and National Labor Relations Board. The union will not lift a finger to mobilize the working class in defense of drivers’ right to freedom of association because that would undermine the position of the bureaucracy itself.
It is telling that BTS management voluntarily chose to allow the Teamsters into the company. It is very possible that this is because the bureaucracy has already offered some sort of behind-the-scenes deal to the company, as trade union bureaucrats commonly attempt to do when expanding to a new workplace. For example, the Teamsters in New England allows newly-unionized trucking companies to pay into the regional Teamsters pension fund at a greatly reduced rate in exchange for allowing the presence of the Teamsters.
According to a source who spoke with the WSWS, the new contract at BTS will include a meager 30 cents per hour pay raise starting in May, up from $19.75 per hour, once the contract is approved. It also will not include a pension.
The way forward for BTS workers is to prepare themselves for a fight not only against Amazon and BTS management but against the Teamsters apparatus. They must organize themselves into an independent rank-and-file committee to ensure democratic control over their own struggle and to appeal for the broadest possible support from Amazon workers, UPS workers, delivery drivers and other logistics workers throughout the country.
HOW MANY PEOPLE HAS DISNEY LAID OFF?
Ron DeSantis Punches Back at Disney Lawsuit: You Have ‘No Legal Right to Corporate Welfare’
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has punched back at Disney’s lawsuit, with his team saying Disney is trying to “undermine the will” of Florida voters and has “no legal right to corporate welfare.”
The Walt Disney Co. filed a lawsuit against DeSantis in federal court Wednesday, claiming the Republican governor is waging a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” in the ongoing fight over Florida’s Parental Rights in Education Law, which has been smeared by the mainstream news media as “Don’t Say Gay.”
After the California-based Disney publicly threatened to fight to repeal the Florida law, DeSantis stripped the company of its self-governing privileges in the Orlando area — a valuable corporate perk Disney has enjoyed for five decades.
A DeSantis spokesman issued a statement shortly after news of the lawsuit broke on Wednesday.
“We are unaware of any legal right that a company has to operate its own government or maintain special privileges not held by other businesses in the state,” DeSantis’ statement said. “This lawsuit is yet another unfortunate example of their hope to undermine the will of the Florida voters and operate outside the bounds of the law.”
Another DeSantis spokesman tweeted: “There’s no legal right to corporate welfare.”
Disney is alleging that DeSantis has “weaponized” government power against Disney and has “orchestrated at every step” of the effort to punish Disney in ways that threaten the company’s business.
Disney’s suit comes as the two sides continue to battle over control of the special district in Orlando known as Reedy Creek.
Florida revoked Disney’s self-governing privileges in the district last year after the company started a political war with DeSantis over Parental Rights in Education Law, which prohibits public schools from indoctrinating students in radical gender ideology, including transgenderism, as well as other forms of sexual ideology.
Since then, DeSantis and Disney have been fighting over control of Reedy Creek, with Disney using backdoor legal means as a way to evade a state takeover of the district.
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com
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