The largest newspaper in Greg Abbot's Texas. Enjoy!
The economy has recovered from the perils of the pandemic and is now healthier than that of any other advanced nation. With unemployment approaching a 50-year low, companies large and small need workers. (Notice the “help wanted” signs in shop windows, the “We’re Hiring” signs outside huge warehouses and distribution centers just off I-10 east of Brookshire.)
Inflation is trending downward, somehow, despite all dire prophecies of economists, without the bitter medicine of a recession or a period of high unemployment. Food prices are still high, and hard-working Americans are still wincing at grocery store receipts, but gas prices have fallen, as the U.S. produces more oil than any country in history, including Saudi Arabia. In an ongoing effort to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, the administration is investing $7 billion in an ambitious solar-power project and is promoting other alternative energy projects, as well.
The stock market is percolating along and hitting record highs.
“Infrastructure week” became a punch line during the inept Trump administration, but the Biden administration in its first year managed to pass a bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that’s expected to add an estimated 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years. This administration’s “infrastructure week” is investing in clean water and high-speed internet. It’s repairing roads and bridges, upgrading air- and seaports, modernizing our power infrastructure, investing in public transit and pahssenger rail and cleaning up Superfund and brownfield sites.
A little heralded initiative related to infrastructure involves “strategic sector” investments in employment-distressed counties around the nation. In 2021, according to a study conducted by Brookings Metro (a think tank) and MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, these 1,071 counties have received about $82 billion in private-sector investment from industries the Biden administration has targeted. Industries that will locate in these areas include manufacturers of semiconductors (in this country instead of China) and equipment to generate solar and wind power.
One of the distressed areas to benefit is Wilbarger County, Texas, along the Red River northwest of Wichita Falls. A $4 billion private-sector venture is constructing a mega-scale green hydrogen plant that’s expected to create 115 permanent jobs and more than 1,300 construction jobs in a county where population has declined almost every decade since 1940. It’s worth noting that Wilbarger County in 2020 cast 21 percent of its votes for Biden, nearly 78 percent for Trump.
The Biden White House also has given Medicare the power to directly negotiate with Big Pharma, thereby lowering drug prices and placing a $35-per-month cap on the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries.
We are reassured in large part because Biden has restored the tradition of a capable team running the White House, a tradition trampled by Trump’s deeply flawed scheme to run a one-man show. Like Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt, Biden’s deft management of his team has made him, arguably, the most productive president since LBJ in the early months of his administration.
He has, as they say, forgotten more than his presumed Republican rival will ever know. That's not saying much, and at the same time, it says it all.
The economy has recovered from the perils of the pandemic and is now healthier than that of any other advanced nation. With unemployment approaching a 50-year low, companies large and small need workers. (Notice the “help wanted” signs in shop windows, the “We’re Hiring” signs outside huge warehouses and distribution centers just off I-10 east of Brookshire.)
Inflation is trending downward, somehow, despite all dire prophecies of economists, without the bitter medicine of a recession or a period of high unemployment. Food prices are still high, and hard-working Americans are still wincing at grocery store receipts, but gas prices have fallen, as the U.S. produces more oil than any country in history, including Saudi Arabia. In an ongoing effort to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, the administration is investing $7 billion in an ambitious solar-power project and is promoting other alternative energy projects, as well.
The stock market is percolating along and hitting record highs.
“Infrastructure week” became a punch line during the inept Trump administration, but the Biden administration in its first year managed to pass a bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that’s expected to add an estimated 1.5 million jobs per year for the next 10 years. This administration’s “infrastructure week” is investing in clean water and high-speed internet. It’s repairing roads and bridges, upgrading air- and seaports, modernizing our power infrastructure, investing in public transit and pahssenger rail and cleaning up Superfund and brownfield sites.
A little heralded initiative related to infrastructure involves “strategic sector” investments in employment-distressed counties around the nation. In 2021, according to a study conducted by Brookings Metro (a think tank) and MIT’s Center for Energy and Environmental Policy, these 1,071 counties have received about $82 billion in private-sector investment from industries the Biden administration has targeted. Industries that will locate in these areas include manufacturers of semiconductors (in this country instead of China) and equipment to generate solar and wind power.
One of the distressed areas to benefit is Wilbarger County, Texas, along the Red River northwest of Wichita Falls. A $4 billion private-sector venture is constructing a mega-scale green hydrogen plant that’s expected to create 115 permanent jobs and more than 1,300 construction jobs in a county where population has declined almost every decade since 1940. It’s worth noting that Wilbarger County in 2020 cast 21 percent of its votes for Biden, nearly 78 percent for Trump.
The Biden White House also has given Medicare the power to directly negotiate with Big Pharma, thereby lowering drug prices and placing a $35-per-month cap on the cost of insulin for Medicare beneficiaries.
We are reassured in large part because Biden has restored the tradition of a capable team running the White House, a tradition trampled by Trump’s deeply flawed scheme to run a one-man show. Like Ronald Reagan, Lyndon Johnson and Franklin Roosevelt, Biden’s deft management of his team has made him, arguably, the most productive president since LBJ in the early months of his administration.
He has, as they say, forgotten more than his presumed Republican rival will ever know. That's not saying much, and at the same time, it says it all.
