OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A growing collection of Democratic governors are openly criticizing President Joe Biden and his administration over various policies that they say are harming their states and their residents.
In Arizona, for instance, Gov. Katie Hobbs is demanding that Biden reverse several of his immigration and border policies as well as direct hundreds of millions of dollars to her state to compensate for having to deal with successive tidal waves of illegal migrants.
Hobbs is planning a trip to the border near Lukeville, Ariz., over the weekend, her office said, to see first-hand an unfolding catastrophe there, which will come after she sent Biden a scathing letter blasting his policies for a lack of border security.
“Hobbs told reporters on Friday that she will visit the southern border with the state’s top National Guard official as she navigates any state action to respond to the mounting situation in southeastern Arizona. The announcement came just as Hobbs’s office released a letter she sent Biden on Friday in which she told him to reassign military to the hard-hit area and reimburse Arizona for $512 million spent responding to the border crisis,” the Washington Examiner reported.
The letter from Hobbs said: “For far too long, Arizona has continued to bear the burden of federal inaction in managing our southern border. The recent decision to close the Lukeville Port of Entry has led to an unmitigated humanitarian crisis in the area and has put Arizona’s safety and commerce at risk.”
The Lukeville Port of Entry was shut down on Monday by a federal government directive, forcing both American and Mexican residents to drive several hours to the nearest port of entry in Nogales, Ariz. According to Representative Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.), travelers now encounter lines that are up to five hours long.
Illegal immigration through the Tucson region of Arizona started to increase six months ago and has risen in recent weeks, climbing from 12,000 arrests per week to 17,500 arrests in the week ending on Nov. 30. Data for the most recent week was supposed to be released on Friday, the Examiner said.
Week in Review…
– 17,500 Apprehensions
– 131 Federal Criminal Cases
– 18 Rescues
– 10 Human Smuggling Events
– 8 Narcotics Events #HonorFirst pic.twitter.com/cfie54n3Ya— John R. Modlin (@USBPChiefTCA) December 1, 2023
Meanwhile, in a separate report, the Examiner noted that Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) ripped the Biden administration over the Internal Revenue Service’s decision to tax the state’s one-time tax rebates, which were sent out earlier this year, as federal income, calling it “bulls**t.”
The Minnesota Democrat criticized the Biden administration’s choice to tax the rebates, which varied from $260 to up to $1,300 per eligible taxpayer while he was addressing the state budget surplus forecast earlier this week.
“Bulls***,” Walz said at a press conference on Wednesday. “I don’t know. It’s the IRS. I will tell you this: I have been on the phone, not much more judicious than that slip there, to let them know.”
“We’ll send Form 1099-MISC to all rebate recipients to use when filing U.S. individual income tax returns for 2023. If you include this payment in federal adjusted gross income, subtract it from Minnesota taxable income on line 33 of Schedule M1M on your state return,” the Minnesota Department of Revenue noted on its website about the rebate.
In August, a reported noted that a key voting bloc that was vital to Biden’s 2020 victory is sending him and his Democratic Party a message they won’t want to hear.
According to an analysis from Harvard University at the time, the 18-29-year-old demographic is trending less liberal and more toward conservatism, which is horrible news for the current occupant of the White House.
John Della Volpe, the polling director at the Harvard Kennedy Institute of Politics, found in his study that younger Americans are trending away from the Democratic Party, while a separate study found that high school senior boys are becoming more conservative.
“Nearly every sign that made me confident in historic levels of youth participation in 2018, 2020, and 2022 — is now flashing red,” Della Volpe wrote in his analysis of 2024, according to The Hill. He added: “The ground is more fertile for voting when youth believe voting makes a tangible difference.”
In 2019, nearly 39 percent of the participants in the Harvard Youth Poll stated that they identified as Democrats. However, in the following spring, this number decreased to 35 percent. Meanwhile, the proportion of young voters who identified as independents or “unaffiliated with a major party” rose from 36 percent in 2019 to 40 percent this year. Also, the percentage of youth voters who identified as Republicans rose slightly from 23 percent to 24 percent, The Hill noted.
