Presumptive Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden is not just a bad choice for America — he is a terrible prospect for Iowa.
Whereas President Trump’s economic policies unleashed a Blue Collar Boom that helped create thousands of jobs in the Hawkeye State and sent our unemployment rate to historic lows before the global pandemic, Biden’s radical policy agenda would spark a nationwide economic recession that would set Iowa back significantly.
Our state has come a long way since the dreary days of the Great Recession and weak recovery for years thereafter — and we can’t allow Joe Biden a repeat performance with our upcoming recovery. Iowa workers are saving an average of $1,424 on their federal income taxes every year, and Biden’s pledge to repeal the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on his first day in office would represent an enormous tax hike at a time when working families can least afford it.
America’s economy certainly struggled to recover from the Great Recession — the Obama-Biden big-government agenda produced the slowest economic “recovery” since World War II. Federal regulations stifled business growth nationwide, preventing entrepreneurs from creating new jobs. Here in Iowa, burdensome environmental regulations weakened our state’s energy and manufacturing industries.
Sadly, Biden is campaigning on an even more extreme version of that platform in this election.
In March, for instance, Biden reiterated his pledge to ban hydraulic fracturing, promising that his administration would implement unprecedented restrictions on fossil fuels. “No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period,” he said.
Iowa isn’t an oil-rich state, but much of the corn we grow is converted into ethanol that is added to gasoline. Moreover, manufacturing has been the backbone of Iowa’s economy for years, and remains one of the largest sectors of our economy. Iowa’s 2018 workforce report noted that we “ranked fourth in the U.S. in manufacturing employment as a percentage of overall employment, following only fellow Midwestern states Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan.”
Most manufacturers depend on fossil fuels, and Iowa’s factories can’t just magically transition to expensive and impractical “green energy” alternatives. That is one of the many reasons why experts project that Biden’s assault on fossil fuels would destroy millions of jobs across the Midwest, creating economic challenges that are simply insurmountable.
Luckily, President Trump offers a much brighter future for the Hawkeye State — he already rebuilt our economy once, and he can do it again in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic. Relentless economic regulations would only hinder Iowa’s recovery from the temporary economic slump caused by the deadly COVID-19 outbreak. A free-market economic agenda that empowers American businesses and protects American jobs, on the other hand, will enable a record-setting rebound.
Iowans have a lot at stake in the upcoming presidential election — we have both a patriotic and personal duty to help keep Joe Biden from dragging America backward.