Political Puff

President Biden’s transition effort cost many times that of President Donald Trump.

The funding is expected to help cover the costs associated with the bureaucratic handover, including the hundreds of aides who have already been hired to staff the transition and its agency review teams, who are a mix of paid staffers and volunteers.

Biden’s team spent nearly $24.4 million through mid-February, according to data disclosed on Monday by the General Services Administration, compared with $4.7 million spent by Trump’s team over the comparable period in 2017.

The current administration spent roughly $13.7 million on payroll and $5 million on travel and events. For comparison, Trump spent around $1 million on payroll and tax expenses and $1.7 million on travel and relocation expenses.

Biden raised $22.1 million from private donors, while Trump’s team raised roughly $6.5 million.

Because Trump contested the outcome of the 2020 election, Biden did not receive federal transition funds until the end of November. In the meantime, he continued to raise money from his supporters.

The Presidential Transition Act does not require Trump to release the money even after the Electoral College meets if the GSA hasn’t ascertained a winner. “If he doesn’t want that money to go out and he doesn’t want the executive branch to cooperate, I think he can stop it,” said Paul Light, a New York University professor of public service who testified before Congress on the matter in 2000 and urged lawmakers to clear up the ambiguity in the law.

The original document (1,021 pages) can be viewed here.

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It is early days yet, but Biden’s hasty decision to reverse everything Trump has been ill-advised. Seventy-four million Americans voted for Trump and it’s reasonable to assume that the majority supported him because they approved of his policies, many of which proved successful.

(1) Biden overturned Trump immigration policies that stemmed the flow of caravans from Central America flooding our southern border. Biden is set to welcome 25,000 asylum-seekers, who had been in Mexico, into the nation. Soon there will be chaos at the border, similar to under President Obama. Americans agree that the border must be secure; this will hurt Biden, just as it hurt Obama.

(2) Cancelled the Keystone Pipeline, nixing thousands of high-paying union jobs, even though the pipeline was shown by the Obama administration to have minimal environmental impact. Plus, Biden has “paused” new drilling leases on federal lands, which will especially kill revenues for New Mexico, which voted for Biden in November. Biden’s attack on energy will eventually cause oil output to drop and gasoline prices to rise at the pump, hurting low-income Americans.

(3) Sided with teachers unions over the needs of families, and especially women, trying to earn a living. Biden’s refusal to order teachers back on the job and indifference to the “science” saying that schools can open safely is payback for union support, but a slap at unemployed workers forced to stay home and care for their kids.

(4) Begun to actively undermine the Trump administration’s extraordinary progress in the Middle East. Biden has already jeopardized the Abraham Accords by temporarily freezing arms sales to the UAE which were included in that deal. Also, Biden has yet to speak with Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, returning to Obama’s failed policies in the region.

(5) Encouraged Democrats to jam through an absurd $1.9 trillion aid package with no GOP votes, destroying his campaign promise to work across the aisle. He is pushing the budget-buster deal even though there remains one TRILLION dollars unspent from prior packages and the economy is rebounding. Buying votes and bailing out blue states with $350 billion of taxpayer funds will not play well in purple states like Georgia, and could prove dangerous to the economy.

Even CNN admitted that the consumer survey was “far worse than economists’ had expected, falling to 76.2 points — a major slide from the same period last year, just before the pandemic hit, when the index stood at 101 points.” It turns out that people earning less than $75,000 were especially downbeat and that Americans at all income levels soured on the outlook for the future.

CNN concludes: “The report signals that the Biden administration’s stimulus plans and the vaccine rollout aren’t doing much so far to boost consumer confidence.”

It’s not just consumers who are in the dumps. The National Federation of Independent Businesses reported that, coincident with Biden’s election, small business optimism (which had been climbing) has collapsed. “The NFIB Small Business Optimism Index declined in January to 95.0, down 0.9 points from December and three points below the 47-year average of 98. Owners expecting better business conditions over the next six months declined seven points to a net negative 23%, the lowest level since November 2013. The net percent of owners expecting better business conditions has fallen 55 points over the past four months.”

When small companies, which employ nearly half of America’s workers, are not optimistic about the future, they delay hiring and spending. The NFIB survey signals trouble ahead.

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