How's that Biden baby formula shortage working out?
Remember when Joe Biden "solved" the baby formula shortage by flying in big Care Package–style shipments in huge jets from Europe? It was embarrassing, given that the U.S. isn't a typical recipient of foreign aid. But not to Joe Biden, who had the cameras all over it.
Turns out the big public relations show did nothing. It was about as effective as Joe Biden releasing oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to solve high prices at the pump.
Same as the price of oil, the baby formula shortage is worse than ever. According to yesterday's Marketwatch:
A national infant formula shortage has forced some desperate parents to drive long hours and scour stores and websites to find a formula for their babies. For the seven days ending May 29, 73% of baby formula products nationwide were out of stock, according to Datasembly, a retail-tracking group. And in some states such as California and Georgia, the out-of-stock rates were at more than 90%.
I visited Walmart in San Diego yesterday — and noticed that the sparsely stocked baby formula tubs in the store were in a a glass case, under lock and key, as one of the most valuable things in the store.
Abbott Nutrition, the Sturgis, Michigan–based producer of Similac and other baby formulas, has shut down again, this time due to bad weather. It had been shut down earlier based on safety allegations in its formula, charges the company denies, and was allowed by the FDA to re-open only 14 days ago. Well, it's down again. The company is one of just four that make the nation's baby formula, which includes specialty formulas for babies with digestive and food allergy conditions, who can't consume anything else. The AP reports that Abbott is the only company that supplies about 5,000 such babies.
But fear not: the FDA is on the job:
"Today, we were made aware of the weather-related situation at Abbott's Sturgis, Michigan facility. I personally spoke to the CEO tonight and we discussed our shared desire to get the facility up and running again as quickly as possible," FDA Commissioner Dr. Robert M. Califf wrote on Twitter. "While this is an unfortunate setback and a reminder that natural weather events can also cause unforeseen supply chain disruptions, I want to reassure consumers the all-of-government work to increase supply means we'll have more than enough product to meet current demand."
Tell that to the mom of a baby who's hungry right now.
Illegal aliens breaking into the country have no such formula shortage problems, the government having set aside stockpiles of formula for their exclusive use, but citizen-mothers just need to take the FDA's word for it that it's working real hard to get them some formula "as quickly as possible," whatever that means.
And speaking of border crises, never fear: Kamala Harris was on the job for this crisis, too.
According to The Hill:
Vice President Harris welcomed another shipment of infant formula from overseas at the Dulles, Va., airport on Friday and said that the administration will have brought in 13 million eight-ounce bottles through its "Operation Fly Formula" airlift by the end of the week.
Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff met with aviation and transportation workers aiding the formula delivery at the airport outside Washington.
And then, in her ineffable style:
Harris said the administration is making progress to address the shortage but added, "There's no doubt there is more work to do."
Meanwhile, Harris's radical niece, Meena, whom I've written about here, declared a couple weeks ago that it was easier to get a gun than baby formula. That remark didn't exactly flatter the Biden/Harris management of the crisis. Twitchy curated some choice tweets here.
What we have here is an administration that is addicted to public relations solutions to solve bona fide economic crises. Issues like inflation and supply chain problems are cured through free market solutions — deregulation, tax cuts, free trade and getting the government out of the way. It's how it went with the Jimmy Carter problems of the 1970s and the Ronald Reagan solutions of the 1980s, as well as the Barack Obama-created problems of the 2000s and 2010s and the Donald Trump solutions post-2016.
Rep. Elise Stefanik, a leading House Republican, has taken up the issue and cobbled together a bill to help resolve the baby formula crisis with at least some of these kinds of solutions.
The Babies Need Formula Now Act will put product back on shelves and provide oversight over the FDA to ensure the Biden administration is doing its job, acting quickly to maintain a healthy and safe supply of formula and not wasting resources.
It won't solve everything, given that the supply chain crisis is economy-wide, but it might help ease things.
It also is likely to be ignored by the Bidenites and congressional Democrats, given that Republicans put it together.
With Biden, all solutions to the continuous string of crises amount to public relations stunts, and embarrassing ones, given that Biden is reduced to begging for help abroad from countries that are better managed than his own and don't have such crises. Instead of getting to the root causes of shortages — which is always some kind of socialism — he thinks the answer is photo-ops, and more specifically, "messaging." All anyone has to do to get the public's mind off a crisis is to change the "messaging."
Anybody starting to feel as though the Bidenites are nothing more than a big con? With crises like these, results are the only things that matter.