Each week, IW's policy experts work together to craft talking points that help us deliver our messages as effectively as possible. IW spokeswomen use...
Category: Debate Prep
Debate Prep: Bidenomics, a Budget Battle, and the UN General Assembly
Each week, IW’s policy experts work together to craft talking points that help us deliver our messages as effectively as possible. IW spokeswomen use these very same focal points to prepare for television and radio appearances and we want you to have the same prep materials so that you can debate these issues with community officials, school officials, and even your family, friends, and neighbors.
FOCAL POINT #1: BIDENOMICS AND THE FY2024 BUDGET BATTLE
Background: Congress has until midnight on September 30, 2023 to avert a government shutdown. Congress will either need to reach an agreement on a full-year omnibus package or pass a short-term funding bill. Now more than ever we need champions in Congress to keep fighting for spending restraint, the elimination of waste and fraud, and the reduction of tax and regulatory burden on households and businesses. Bidenomics has made inflation, the deficit, and job growth worse. Sadly, for many, everyday goods and groceries are unaffordable.
Talking Points:
- Americans have suffered for years now because of Washington’s reckless spending that needlessly juiced consumer demand when supply was clearly incapable of meeting it.
- Families have been forced to cut back on spending, increase credit card usage, and exhaust their savings due to two years of high inflation: Prices across the board are markedly higher today than they were in 2021.
- Bidenomics—President Biden’s economic agenda of excessive federal spending and onerous regulations—is largely responsible for inflation taking off soon after he took office and remaining high.
- Americans don’t feel better off, because Bidenomics have left them worse off.
- Bidenomics is the opposite of Reaganomics. It is focused on enormous federal spending, the expansion of regulations, and an increase in taxes
- Overall, Bidenomics has made job growth, inflation, and the deficit worse. Here’s how:
- Bidenomics, which includes huge congressional spending and a stimulus package, is responsible for driving inflation higher, not for bringing it down.
- Bidenomics misleadingly takes credit for reducing the deficit that would have declined if President Biden did nothing according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in February 2021
- President Biden is taking credit for jobs that returned after pandemic restrictions ended and calling them all “new” jobs
- Americans don’t feel better off, because Bidenomics have left them worse off.
- To ensure growth for businesses and prosperity for all, it is imperative that policymakers work to dismantle barriers to economic opportunity and fight for spending restraint, the elimination of waste and fraud, and the reduction of tax and regulatory burden on households and businesses.
FOCAL POINT #2: 78TH SESSION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Background: World leaders are in New York for the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly. This year, the theme is “Rebuilding trust and reigniting global solidarity: Accelerating action on the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals towards peace, prosperity, progress and sustainability for all.” In his speech to the assembly, President Biden is expected to tout his “administration’s achievements around the globe.” However, actions – or in this case a lack thereof – speak louder than words, and the Biden administration has yet to take a meaningful stand against the innumerable threats and aggressive actions taken by America’s most dangerous adversaries. Meanwhile, China is making plans to seize Taiwan, Russia’s open war on Ukraine endures, Iran is building up its nuclear program, and North Korea has resumed missile tests and expanded its arsenal.
Talking Points:
- There’s no question that the world is heading in a bad direction. It is vital that America stand up to inevitable threats and aggressive moves by America’s most dangerous adversaries.
- But we have so far seen almost nothing of the kind. The U.S. is gutting its military, downsizing its Navy, and stressing woke politics over preparation to win wars.
- President Biden, with his “America last” policies and increasingly garbled pronouncements, has been peddling a collectivist kumbaya approach to world affairs that invites the worst actors to make their moves.
- There are signs that there is more trouble ahead and that we are on the road to very tough times.
- The world’s problems cannot be fixed by global diplomacy, more sanctions (which have their limits, and do not win wars), or fixation on the climate half a century from now.
- To preserve freedom and democracy, a top priority is the rebuilding of the U.S. military focused on deterring and winning wars, rather than on social issues and eco-fuels.
- Policies should also aim to return the U.S. to energy independence.
- This means that our President must change course. But this is unlikely, given that the President refuses to acknowledge his administration’s role in the world’s current state of affairs.
Learn more:
https://www.iwf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Meaghan-Mobbs_IWF-Testimony_3.28.2023.docx.pdf
