#Union backed Biden, lost jobs and other commentary

Heartland watch: Union Backed Biden, Lost Jobs

The Appvion Inc. paper mill plant in Roaring Spring, Pa., closed for good this month, leaving 293 workers jobless and marking “the first significant manufacturing loss in this state since President Joe Biden took office,” Saleno Zito laments at American Greatness. Of those handed pink slips, 250 belonged to the United Steelworkers, which backed Biden in 2020. “Biden’s vocal support of unions . . . has done little to stem the loss of blue-collar jobs in America.” The United Auto Workers also endorsed Biden but last week could only “blast” Ford’s plan to build new vehicles in Mexico instead of Ohio. Workers resent relentless lockdowns, which Biden supports, as well as “climate-change demands from the Biden administration” that would kill manufacturing.

From the right: End the ‘Race Theory’ Gimmicks

Critical race theory is “reverse racism,” as it blames whites and Western culture “for academic disparities among racial minorities,” argues Auguste Meyrat at The Federalist. It’s a popular “gimmick” in public schools looking for “a quick and easy solution” to complex problems. Yet CRT’s “blatantly political” agenda raises “the already totalitarian nature of public school districts to a new level,” threatening to silence teachers who reject it as “untrue or unhelpful.” Competition through school choice is the only way to stop teachers from using CRT as an excuse to “avoid hard work” and “demand nothing from themselves or their students.” For the sake of children and teachers “who want to do good work, it’s time for Americans to flip this dynamic and stop the gimmicks once and for all.”

COVID journal: The Texas Disaster That Wasn’t

President Biden called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to lift his state mask mandate “Neanderthal thinking,” recalls Drew Holden at National Review. California Gov. Gavin Newsom called it “reckless.” To 2020 presidential wannabe Beto O’Rourke, it was “a death warrant.” Media coverage was brutal, too. Yet in the month since then, “something odd happened: The number of new coronavirus cases and deaths went down” in Texas. Its seven-day new-case average is less than half what it was when the policy was announced. Meanwhile, other states, like New York and Michigan, “are experiencing major spikes.” Texas’ experience should engender “a spirit of humility — a recognition that, just maybe, we don’t have all the answers.”

Centrist: Refund the Police

“Can we agree that, as long as we’re funding more of everything, we’re going to also refund the police?” asks Noah Millman at The Week. He’s happy to see “more support for families, more housing, more jobs, more and cleaner electricity,” but since last summer’s protests that made the “defund” slogan huge, “it has become apparent that America’s decades-long trend of declining crime has decisively reversed” — and the turn began “in the mid-2010s, before either the pandemic or the George Floyd protests.” After all, “crime is bad” and often “a driver of inequality.” Plus, “failing to address rising crime fuels distrust in government.” Note, too: “Hiring more police is consistently popular, including in black communities that also voice concerns about police abuse.”

Budget hawk: How To Cut Infrastructure Costs

President Biden’s $2 trillion American Jobs Plan includes $85 billion for mass transit and $80 billion for Amtrak and freight rail, but, observes Connor Harris at City Journal, “the poor state of American infrastructure” isn’t because of insufficient spending but “failed cost control — a problem Biden’s proposal won’t solve.” Projects in cities like New York and Boston have “cost several times” those elsewhere “on a per-mile basis.” Washington enables the “bloat” by heavily subsidizing projects; locals see the subsidies as “free money” and don’t “worry about efficient construction.” Meanwhile, Biden’s plan shows “a lack of interest in cost control,” requiring, for example, all materials to be US-made, which inflates costs. Better to “turn off the spigots.” Greater “local responsibility may force local managers finally” to get serious about cost-cutting.

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board