Are We Going To Keep Ignoring Biden Being Insane?

[Dill]

(06-28-2021, 03:14 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I'll try to break to down in a few reasons, where it's more digestable to read...

1.) I do not like his use "I" in his response.  ("I got them more money")

This wasn't something he passed on his own, nor is it something he worked up in his lonesome.  There had been negotiations going on for months, and they had already been some level of agreement that more funds were needed.  This took the work of a tremendous amount of people, occuring on both sides, and it took a lot of time before he was even in office.

Fwiw, this one of the many reasons I didn't like Trump either.  I don't dig the "I did", "Because of me", "I, I, I" patting on the back.  Not only do I not find it presidential, it's not even factually correct in this case.

2.) This is a continuation of the above.  What's lost in what Joe Biden did or didn't do, is that stimulus money had already been spent (twice) prior to his term.  The extra unemployment payments had been in place for around 7 or 8 months.  So it's not like he created these ideas out of thin air, they were already in place.  He (really they) simply extended it.

3.)  I find is response of "pay them more" so increiblely offensive.  It's so insensitive to those that aren't Walmart, or Kroger, or McDonalds, or Target, or any number of huge companies that can manage to make it that simple.

We're coming off of a pandemic, where small businesses have been decimated.  Many are struggling just to keep their doors open, to no real fault of their own.  And you expect at this time, of all times, to be an appropriate time for them to absorb huge increases in labor costs.

What I'm talking about here is your local mom and pop hardware store, your local music store, your family owned restaraunt.  People that are teetering on the edge of going under.  It's not so simple as them to "just pay them more".  They can hardly pay them as it is.

Fwiw, one of my best friends is in a terrible situation right now and I'd be happy to share his story as an example.  Him and his wife managed a local venue that specialized in weddings and does live music a couple days a week for about a decade.  They bought that business in Novemeber of 2019.  When I tell you they're hurting, I mean it.  They're all but screwed at this point.  To tell someone like that the answer to their current staffing issues is to take on 20-50%+ increases in labor is downright cruel.

4.) The idea of just paying more isn't even working.  There's all sorts of places that are offering way more in pay than they used to and they still can't fill these positions.  Kings Island here in town is offering like $16 bucks an hour for what used to be a $8-10 job and they can't still can't get properly staffed. 

There's hundreds upon hundreds of examples like this.  How much do they need to pay them exactly?  $20 an hours?  $25?

5.) I'm not pointing any of this out to assign blame, and to clain Biden created this mess simply by extending benefits.  This had been breweing a long time before.  But it's still a serious issue, and one that is much more deserving than the response he gave.

He attempted to provide no actual solution or explanation, and he showed zero sympathy.  IMHO, he basically spit in the faces of a lot of people who doing everything they can to make all this work, to the point of being more than generous,and still struggling to staff their business.  It's a complex problem that requires a more complex response, and it certainly would be nice if it featured some empathy as well.

tldr; I thought his comments were self-centered, intenionally simplistic in order to be dismissive of real issues, and incredibly insensitive. 

Regarding 1., wasn't part of the reason he said "I wrote it" to establish that he was for the bill in question? I don't see a disclaimer here that no one else helped.

Re: 2. I don't think he was disputing that Trump wanted to send people $2,000 checks but his party did not want to go along with it. FDR created unemployment insurance, so that kicked in of course. Not a "stimulus" measure. 

Also, work on the stimulus bill has not been equal. Much of the work of "one side" has been to get the other side to just buy in, against the wishes of their leadership, right? So you can say "both sides" were working hard, but one side was definitely working harder and leading the way.

3-4. And yet, Biden won't be "paying them more." The proposed bill has dropped $15 an hour minimum wage increase and lowered the threshold of for families getting stimulus checks and lowered unemployment benefits by 100 bucks a week. So it's not clear that "paying them more" is at the center of policy debates anymore. Those details can be lost when how-Biden-makes-us-feel centers discussion.

5. Here I think you are hanging way to much on a press conference comment, probably not aimed at small businesses. If I remember correctly, someone raised the problem of a labor shortage. Businesses could not find people to work for them. Biden offered a market solution.

Your friends in the wedding entertainment business--are they struggling because they cannot hire, or because people are not engaging them? if the latter, then I don't see how Biden's comment was spit in their faces. He, and his party, are trying harder to help them than the Republicans did.