Byron York’s Daily Memo: Keep your eye on the things that matter

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE THINGS THAT MATTER. Much of the daily conversation on social media is consumed by ephemera. Is political Twitter being mean to Taylor Lorenz? Does Pepe Le Pew promote rape culture? And what about Harry and Meghan? It’s all fine to think about, as long as you don’t devote too much mental bandwidth to it and don’t forget that there are some enormous things happening in our politics right now.

The fact is, the Biden administration, despite its tenuous holds on the House and Senate, is working to make far-reaching changes to American life. Two of the biggest — and two that could combine to create a crisis — are the COVID relief bill, which the president will sign into law tomorrow, and immigration. They are two key parts of a progressive agenda that Democrats have hoped to pass for many years. Now, in a time of pandemic and post-Trump politics, they see an opportunity.

On COVID relief, the first thing to remember is that the bill is mostly not about COVID relief. If it had been mostly about the pandemic, then it would have gotten a significant amount of Republican support. Instead, as the Washington Post noted, Democrats see the legislation as “the furthest-reaching social welfare bill since the Great Depression.” Republicans agree. Speaking on Fox News, GOP Representative Michael Waltz called the bill “the largest expansion of the welfare state since Lyndon Baines Johnson in the 1960s…The amount of things they have been able to cram through under the guise of COVID has been truly jaw-dropping.”

You’ve heard about the bill throwing billions at state and local governments that have not suffered in the pandemic. (Several have actually seen increases in their tax revenues.) But the most far-reaching parts of the bill are its expansions of the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, Medicaid, food assistance and more. In doing so, it would sever the connection between work and federal government aid that was made in the Clinton-era welfare reform. Now, there will be what the writer Mickey Kaus calls the “Biden dole.” Starting with this bill, the government will just hand out cash, no work required.

Subscribe today to the Washington Examiner magazine that will keep you up to date with what’s going on in Washington. SUBSCRIBE NOW: Just $1.00 an issue!

By the way, read Kaus’ latest notes on the bill here. “We care about what these check-mailing programs will do to the texture of poorer communities over a long term,” he writes. “Specifically, will the child checks lead to an atrophying culture of work? Will young men improve their job skills or play video games or plot assaults on the U.S. Capitol?”

Needless to say, there is no way to measure the effect that the bill will have. For most lawmakers, there wasn’t even time to read it before passage. On Friday, it will be law.

Then there is immigration. President Trump constructed a system of greater border security and measures that forced asylum seekers — most of whom are never granted asylum — to wait outside the U.S. while their cases were considered. Biden has blown that up, with no real preparation for what might follow.

From a tweet by Washington Post reporter Nick Miroff Wednesday night: “Internal DHS/HHS reports show the crisis at the border is significantly worse than Biden admin has acknowledged. There are now 3,500 unaccompanied minors in grim Border Patrol detention cells, a record…” More than 100,000 migrants tried to enter the U.S. in February, nearly three times the number from February 2020.

It is Biden’s fault, pure and simple. Starting in the campaign, he sent the message that a Biden administration would welcome illegal border crossers. He promised a moratorium on deportations, an end to Trump’s wait-in-Mexico program, increased aid for migrants, and more. And he said he would immediately stop construction on the Trump border wall. Then, when he took office, he did all those things. Does anyone wonder why there is a rush at the border?

Also, remember this: There is a connection between what Biden is doing with the COVID relief bill and what he is doing with immigration. The combination of more generous benefits in the United States and fewer immigration controls at the border guarantees more people will come. In their determination to act quickly, Biden and his party are creating long-term problems.

Look at this new piece, “Biden’s border-crossing magnets,” from Axios. “While the president serves Americans with each step, collectively his actions can turn the U.S. into even more of a beacon for migrants, especially those in Central America desperate to flee countries ravaged by the pandemic, hurricanes and crime,” writes Axios’ Hans Nichols. “Biden officials worried about a crisis at the border before he even won the election. Now that it’s happening, they don’t have any quick-fix solutions in sight and the things they’re doing to fix other problems could make that one even worse.”

So you can pay attention to the Twitter outrage of the day, whatever it is. But keep your eye on what the Biden administration and Democrats in the House and Senate are doing. It is big, it is important, and it could change American life forever.

For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show — available on the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found. You can use this link to subscribe.