I read your Opinion page every day with great interest, and I think its very existence is a thought-provoking and appropriate public service. I have to bite my tongue frequently, however, when I read what can only be thought of as paranoia concerning ex-President Donald Trump’s administration, versus that of President Biden’s, where “facts” are concerned.
The following comments are not about personalities, demeanor or likeability, but about verifiable facts. I don’t care about how any publicly elected officials present themselves, short of some illegality, but I look for results, and the facts that support those results.
For example: Inflation in the U.S. in 2020 was 1.2%, compared to inflation in 2022 of 8.5%; retail automotive fuel (gas) was a national average of $1.98 a gallon in 2020, versus $4.66 a gallon in 2022; food prices have increased generally 9.9% since 2020, food-at-home has increased 11.4%, food-away-from-home 7.7%.
Rent prices in 2020 were slightly less than $1,690 for a studio apartment, up to $2,017 for a three-bedroom apartment. That increased by 15.57% by 2022, roughly a $230 per month median increase for those renting. In 2021, the average nominal electricity price paid by U.S. residential customers rose the fastest rate since 2008, increasing some 4.3% from 2020. Many in the RGV think it has been much more than that.
Medical costs rose by some 7% in 2021 and another 6.5% in 2022. The real median earnings of all workers, including part-time and full-time workers, increased by 4.6% between 2020 and 2021, while median earnings of those who worked full-time year-round decreased by 4.1%, indicating a stagnant compensation period.
Savings and investments between 1959 and the first half of 2022 averaged 8.96%. In the second half of 2022, the average dropped to 5.1%. Folks are spending more and saving less. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has fallen 1.2% since President Biden has taken office, and is the second-worst performance since Jimmy Carter was in office. The “blue chip index,” which includes such tech giants as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla and the Berkshire-Hathaway funds, has been hammered by Biden administration policies, and have plummeted 21% in 2022 alone.
An “open-door border” policy, no matter what the administration’s statements say, where apprehension went from 1.64 million migrants in fiscal year 2020 to a staggering 2.38 million in fiscal year 2022 alone (not counting the approximate 600,000 to 1 million “got-aways.”
Finally there’s “disposable income,” which in 2020 was a positive 6% of income, to a negative 8% in 2022. The United States, under the current administration, has gone from being “energy independent” to a nation that now buys from, and subsidizes, nations such as Russia, Iran, Venezuela and others of their ilk, disregarding their obviously brutal socialist governments. The current administration loudly touts “going green,” without the slightest concerns about the infrastructure to support such programs, and I give as an example the state of California, where the eventual fossil-fuel vehicle will be unavailable, electric vehicles mandated, yet you cannot charge your EV at their request because of the traveling “brownouts.”
So I ask your readers and commenters to at least be accurate in their expressed thoughts, regardless of their personal biases concerning any one individual. I have the highest respect for our national voting system(s), and if I had a crystal ball, as some seem to have, I would be a rich man. You pick your guy and I’ll pick mine, and all I ask is that you consider the factual results garnered by those who would lead us when making and expressing your decision. May the good Lord be at your doorstep, and bless the United States of America!
Sherwood D. Uhrmacher lives in Palmview.
