Are you better off than you were one year ago?
That’s the message the White House is trying to convey in a year-end memo to Democratic lawmakers and other supporters, according to a new report from Axios.
The memo — titled “2021: POTUS Delivered for Working Families” — illustrates in words and graphics what the Biden administration describes as a year of accomplishments, according to the outlet.
The two-page document touts the COVID-19 vaccination program, the widespread reopening of schools, and a decline in the unemployment rate and jobless claims. It also hails the passage of two major spending bills this year: the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure framework last month.
“In spite of unprecedented crises and opposition from Congressional Republicans, President Biden, Vice President Harris, and Congressional Democrats got an enormous amount done for the American people in 2021,” the memo claims.
Absent from the document is any mention of inflation, which is at a 39-year high. Nor is there any discussion of an increase in COVID-19 cases across the country as the Omicron variant becomes the dominant strain, the collapse of the multitrillion-dollar Build Back Better plan after Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) pulled his support, or the tragic aftermath of the botched US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
While the memo argues that the White House helped tackle the supply chain crisis and halve the number of container ships waiting to be unloaded at ports since November, critics say that’s a fudge based on new shipping rules and argue that the backlog hasn’t gotten any better and may be getting worse.
The memo also comes as the president’s poll numbers continue to sink, with far more Americans saying they disapprove of his job performance than approve of it.
