Biden cozies up to his union handlers

Biden cozies up to his union handlers

Biden cozies up to his union handlers

Just in case further proof were needed, Joe Biden on Tuesday confirmed once and for all who’s to blame for the unparalleled misery with which the nation has been asked to contend for the past 17 months.

“You’re a gigantic reason why I’m standing here,” he told attendees at the AFL-CIO’s annual convention in Philadelphia, “standing here today as your president. And I really mean it.”

We believe you, Joe.

Record-high gas prices, Carter-esque inflation levels, chaos at the border, diplomatic gaffes, COVID hysteria, lawlessness in the streets, higher taxes, lower productivity … we have unions to thank for it all, and they don’t even have the decency to be embarrassed.

“Ya’ll brung me to the dance,” the president mumbled. “I owe you from the very beginning of my running for office back when I was a kid. It was labor … unions. Back then, we were a right-to-work state, and we changed that, too.”

It’s unclear whether Biden thought he was referring to Pennsylvania or Delaware, but neither state has ever recognized and then revoked the right-to-work protections.

“I’ve never forgotten not only what you’ve done for me,” he said, “but how importantly (sic) it meant to me and to the country.”

It may well be the only thing he hasn’t forgotten.

In any case, there can be little doubt unions have been exceedingly important to Joe Biden’s career.

And he’s paying back his debt by writing a check on our bank accounts.

The “House That Labor Built” knew who it was getting when it bought and paid for Joe Biden’s election(s). Biden promised at a 2020 Labor Day campaign appearance with former AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka to be the most pro-union president in the nation’s history.

“Before Rich passed,” Biden said, “he gave me the highest compliment that I’ve ever gotten in my life, and I mean it sincerely. He called me the most pro-union president in American history.

“I promised you I would be,” he continued, “and I commit to you as long as I have this job I will remain that.”

Biden, who a week earlier had ended a 150-day streak of ducking press events long enough to snicker about the state of the nation with painfully unfunny late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, continued to say the quiet part out loud during his AFL-CIO address.

“When I think global warming,” he said, “I think jobs, jobs, jobs. Good-paying union jobs.”

As opposed to the thousands of high-paying union and non-union jobs Biden destroyed by pulling the plug on the Keystone Pipeline, canceling oil leases and other sellouts to his environmental extremist base.

But it helped institute the clamor for Green New Deal jobs, which would go to the unions.

What he really thinks when Americans pay twice as much to fill their tanks as they did just a year ago is “Paybacks, paybacks, paybacks.”

With our money.

Just as despicably, Biden’s stalled Build Back Better bill has nothing to do with infrastructure and everything to do with inflating the cost of needed projects in order to line the pockets of his union string-pullers.

Previously in the speech, Biden boasted of earmarking $3 billion to improve airports across the country, $5 billion for electric vehicles and charging stations and another $20.5 billion for public transit projects.

And we’re paying for it all — because these are taxpayer dollars being funneled into Big Labor’s immense war chests to fund their lavish lifestyles, underwrite leftist politics and buy even more politicians like “Scranton Joe.”

Lastly, Biden closed his cringeworthy address with a rebuke to those critical of his free-spending ways.

“We’re changing people’s lives,” he declared.

Yes, yes you are, Joe. For the worse.

Vice President of Communication and Federal Affairs
avarner@freedomfoundation.com
Ashley Varner brings a variety of public affairs experience and a tough skin to the Freedom Foundation team. Prior to joining the Freedom Foundation, Ashley spent many exciting, turbulent and wonderful years as a media spokesperson and state government liaison at the National Rifle Association. Following her tenure at the NRA, Ashley joined the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where she worked with state and local lawmakers across the country on a diverse set of policy and communications issues. A grassroots activist from a young age, Ashley joined her first of many political campaigns before graduating high school and organized protests across the street from her own professors at the University of Missouri. When not rabble-rousing against Big Government, Ashley enjoys cooking, mafia movies, and has seen most of the 1970s and 80s classic rock bands still on tour. She loves the Chiefs, hopes someday she can love her Mizzou Tigers again, and she was a Kansas City Royals fan and Patriot Act opponent before either was cool.