mikegriffith1
Mike Griffith
I did not vote for Biden in 2020 and will not vote for him in the next election, but his presidency has not been all bad. He has done a number of good things. For example:
-- Biden backed and implemented the Pentagon’s Replicator program proposal to counter China’s lead in military AI-enabled drones. The Replicator program is building thousands of relatively cheap and quickly replaceable drones that can work together to attack, swarm, and defeat enemy defenses. Once all the drones are built, the U.S. will at least have achieved parity with China in AI-enabled drones, if not modest superiority.
-- Biden pushed for and signed the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, which has sparked a huge increase in infrastructure improvement. The bill has also sparked a huge jump in the construction industry. Nearly 700,000 new construction jobs have been created since the bill’s passage. This construction boom, in turn, has fueled a sharp rise in orders for construction materials.
Let’s keep in mind that even conservative Republicans have long argued that infrastructure spending is one of the best investments that the government can make with taxpayer dollars.
-- Much to the consternation of radical green energy advocates, in late 2021, Biden “quietly” began to promote expanded U.S. oil production. As a result, U.S. oil production is now at record levels, and is expected to go even higher next year. U.S. oil production is now over 13 million barrels per day (13.3 million), the highest production rate ever (barrels per day under Trump ranged from 9.9 million to 12.9 million barrels).
As one liberal commentator has noted, “Demanding an ‘all of the above’ policy that includes all forms of energy has become cliche among lawmakers. Under Biden, that may have become a reality few politicians will want to publicly discuss. Democrats don’t want to alienate their green backers on the left who’ve accused the administration of abandoning its climate focus, while Republicans are loath to admit that Biden’s oil boom is bigger than Trump’s.”
-- Biden has requested the largest increase in defense spending allowed under the 2023 Biden-McCarthy budget deal’s spending limits. When Biden took office in January 2021, defense spending stood at $806 billion. It was $816 billion in 2023. This year’s defense budget is $842 billion. Biden has asked Congress for an increase to $895 billion for Fiscal Year 2025.
-- Although Biden admittedly failed to act decisively when he learned that Russia was going to invade Ukraine, after Putin invaded, Biden exerted great effort to send massive amounts of weapons and supplies to prevent Ukraine from collapsing. He has approved the sending of increasingly lethal weapons to Ukraine. Yes, he could and should have done more, but he has definitely done more than Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren would have done.
-- Biden has moved aggressively to increase microchip production in the U.S. to reduce our dependency on foreign-produced microchips. During the pandemic, Americans discovered that we were too dependent on microchips produced overseas (mainly in China and Taiwan). When factories shut down in Asia and supply chains bottled up during the pandemic, U.S. automakers and other manufacturers could not get the chips they needed, idling their plants and spiking prices for cars and other goods.
Biden worked with Congress to pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which offered more than $50 billion to subsidize the construction of new microchip facilities in the U.S. and boost research and development across a series of national research facilities. The bill passed in July 2022 with solid bipartisan majorities.
As a result, major chipmakers have announced plans for new semiconductor plants in the U.S, including an Intel campus near Columbus, Ohio, and a facility from Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC in Arizona. More than a dozen new tech research hubs are also planned based on the CHIPS Act’s funding. And the Biden administration recently announced its first actual CHIPS Act grant : a $35 million grant to defense contractor BAE to expand a facility that supplies Air Force fighter jets.
-- Biden inherited senseless interagency squabbling over 5G wireless technology, which reduced the government’s ability to auction off valuable spectrum ranges used for commercial wireless technology. For years agencies had been feuding over how to use different chunks of these airwaves, often pitting the Federal Communications Commission against the Pentagon, the Transportation Department, and other departments that have their own increasing demands for spectrum to operate military radars, aviation equipment, and other systems. These turf wars fueled anxiety over our ability to compete against global rivals like China, which is seeking to dominate the wireless ecosystem and subsidizing telecom giants like Huawei.
Biden created a system that enables the Commerce Department and, when necessary, the White House to settle interagency disputes over 5G spectrum usage and allocation. This move has put the U.S. on firmer global standing and has helped to streamline government policy and usage of the 5G spectrum.
-- Thanks to Biden’s vast increase in the federal investment in renewable energy, renewable energy is now the second largest source of electric power, whereas just a few years ago it ranked fourth.
-- Biden has cracked down on junk fees charged by airlines, cable companies, concert ticket-sellers, and hotels, saving Americans at least $2 billion per year and rising.
-- Biden has cracked down on China-based companies operating in the U.S. who were refusing to disclose their audits. Ever since the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the U.S. has allowed companies to publicly list their stocks only if they agree to let federal watchdogs review their auditors’ work. However, until 2022, Chinese authorities, citing national security concerns, refused to allow American inspectors to examine the books of China-based companies.
Biden secured a landmark deal in August 2022 that gives American inspectors at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the top American accounting watchdog, unprecedented access to the audits of Chinese and Hong Kong-based firms trading on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.
I should add that this deal was made possible by the 2020 bill that Trump signed that empowered the government to expel companies that did not allow their audits to be inspected.
-- Biden is in the process of raising the threshold for receiving overtime pay to $55,000, a long-overdue increase. Under current law, only employees who earn less than $36,000 can receive overtime pay for overtime hours. Thus, if you earn $37,000 per year, your employer can require that you work overtime hours without getting overtime pay for those hours. My oldest son was the general manager of a large restaurant and had to work 60-70 hours per week, but he received no overtime pay for the extra hours because his salary was $60K per year.
Again, I did not and will not vote for Biden, but he has done many good things, and his reelection would not necessarily mean the end of the world.
-- Biden backed and implemented the Pentagon’s Replicator program proposal to counter China’s lead in military AI-enabled drones. The Replicator program is building thousands of relatively cheap and quickly replaceable drones that can work together to attack, swarm, and defeat enemy defenses. Once all the drones are built, the U.S. will at least have achieved parity with China in AI-enabled drones, if not modest superiority.
-- Biden pushed for and signed the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure bill, which has sparked a huge increase in infrastructure improvement. The bill has also sparked a huge jump in the construction industry. Nearly 700,000 new construction jobs have been created since the bill’s passage. This construction boom, in turn, has fueled a sharp rise in orders for construction materials.
Let’s keep in mind that even conservative Republicans have long argued that infrastructure spending is one of the best investments that the government can make with taxpayer dollars.
-- Much to the consternation of radical green energy advocates, in late 2021, Biden “quietly” began to promote expanded U.S. oil production. As a result, U.S. oil production is now at record levels, and is expected to go even higher next year. U.S. oil production is now over 13 million barrels per day (13.3 million), the highest production rate ever (barrels per day under Trump ranged from 9.9 million to 12.9 million barrels).
As one liberal commentator has noted, “Demanding an ‘all of the above’ policy that includes all forms of energy has become cliche among lawmakers. Under Biden, that may have become a reality few politicians will want to publicly discuss. Democrats don’t want to alienate their green backers on the left who’ve accused the administration of abandoning its climate focus, while Republicans are loath to admit that Biden’s oil boom is bigger than Trump’s.”
-- Biden has requested the largest increase in defense spending allowed under the 2023 Biden-McCarthy budget deal’s spending limits. When Biden took office in January 2021, defense spending stood at $806 billion. It was $816 billion in 2023. This year’s defense budget is $842 billion. Biden has asked Congress for an increase to $895 billion for Fiscal Year 2025.
-- Although Biden admittedly failed to act decisively when he learned that Russia was going to invade Ukraine, after Putin invaded, Biden exerted great effort to send massive amounts of weapons and supplies to prevent Ukraine from collapsing. He has approved the sending of increasingly lethal weapons to Ukraine. Yes, he could and should have done more, but he has definitely done more than Bernie Sanders or Liz Warren would have done.
-- Biden has moved aggressively to increase microchip production in the U.S. to reduce our dependency on foreign-produced microchips. During the pandemic, Americans discovered that we were too dependent on microchips produced overseas (mainly in China and Taiwan). When factories shut down in Asia and supply chains bottled up during the pandemic, U.S. automakers and other manufacturers could not get the chips they needed, idling their plants and spiking prices for cars and other goods.
Biden worked with Congress to pass the CHIPS and Science Act, which offered more than $50 billion to subsidize the construction of new microchip facilities in the U.S. and boost research and development across a series of national research facilities. The bill passed in July 2022 with solid bipartisan majorities.
As a result, major chipmakers have announced plans for new semiconductor plants in the U.S, including an Intel campus near Columbus, Ohio, and a facility from Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC in Arizona. More than a dozen new tech research hubs are also planned based on the CHIPS Act’s funding. And the Biden administration recently announced its first actual CHIPS Act grant : a $35 million grant to defense contractor BAE to expand a facility that supplies Air Force fighter jets.
-- Biden inherited senseless interagency squabbling over 5G wireless technology, which reduced the government’s ability to auction off valuable spectrum ranges used for commercial wireless technology. For years agencies had been feuding over how to use different chunks of these airwaves, often pitting the Federal Communications Commission against the Pentagon, the Transportation Department, and other departments that have their own increasing demands for spectrum to operate military radars, aviation equipment, and other systems. These turf wars fueled anxiety over our ability to compete against global rivals like China, which is seeking to dominate the wireless ecosystem and subsidizing telecom giants like Huawei.
Biden created a system that enables the Commerce Department and, when necessary, the White House to settle interagency disputes over 5G spectrum usage and allocation. This move has put the U.S. on firmer global standing and has helped to streamline government policy and usage of the 5G spectrum.
-- Thanks to Biden’s vast increase in the federal investment in renewable energy, renewable energy is now the second largest source of electric power, whereas just a few years ago it ranked fourth.
-- Biden has cracked down on junk fees charged by airlines, cable companies, concert ticket-sellers, and hotels, saving Americans at least $2 billion per year and rising.
-- Biden has cracked down on China-based companies operating in the U.S. who were refusing to disclose their audits. Ever since the Enron and WorldCom scandals, the U.S. has allowed companies to publicly list their stocks only if they agree to let federal watchdogs review their auditors’ work. However, until 2022, Chinese authorities, citing national security concerns, refused to allow American inspectors to examine the books of China-based companies.
Biden secured a landmark deal in August 2022 that gives American inspectors at the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the top American accounting watchdog, unprecedented access to the audits of Chinese and Hong Kong-based firms trading on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ.
I should add that this deal was made possible by the 2020 bill that Trump signed that empowered the government to expel companies that did not allow their audits to be inspected.
-- Biden is in the process of raising the threshold for receiving overtime pay to $55,000, a long-overdue increase. Under current law, only employees who earn less than $36,000 can receive overtime pay for overtime hours. Thus, if you earn $37,000 per year, your employer can require that you work overtime hours without getting overtime pay for those hours. My oldest son was the general manager of a large restaurant and had to work 60-70 hours per week, but he received no overtime pay for the extra hours because his salary was $60K per year.
Again, I did not and will not vote for Biden, but he has done many good things, and his reelection would not necessarily mean the end of the world.
