Can’t find baby formula? Don’t blame President Joe Biden — he’s not a “mind reader.”
Around the nation, parents are scooping up formula wherever they can find it. Social media groups are directing mothers to stores that have stock of the brands not affected by the massive Abbott Nutrition recall and the closure of a formula production plant.
Articles are popping up all over the place warning parents about the dangers of making their own powder.
It’s taken on the trappings of a national emergency, but the Biden administration says there’s nothing it could have done — except that one of the top Democrats in the Senate says he pushed the Food and Drug Administration on the issue months ago.
(Here at The Western Journal, we’ve been documenting the Biden administration’s numerous failures to realize supply chain crises before they happen. We’ll continue documenting You can help by subscribing.)
So, here’s the president saying on Friday that, without Amazing Kreskin-esque foresight, he couldn’t have foreseen this happening:
“If we’d been better mind readers, I guess we could have, but we moved as quickly as the problem became apparent to us,” Biden said after he was questioned about the shortage.
“And we have to move with caution as well as speed, because we got to make sure what we’re getting is, in fact, first-rate product. That’s why the FDA has to go through the process.”
Should Joe Biden have done more to prevent a baby formula shortage?
The problem is that one of the members of his own party has let it be known that the looming problem with baby formula had been apparent to anyone paying attention.
Earlier in the day, Montana Democrat Sen. Jon Tester told CNN he’d talked to the FDA “months ago” about potential formula issues, according to Breitbart.
The Montana Democrat called it a “big concern” and said “we need to do everything we can do to right this ship. It’s — literally is a life and death situation in many cases.”
“And is the White House doing that?” CNN’s “New Day” host John Berman asked.
“I believe they’re taking appropriate steps right now to get this done, yep,” Tester said.
“I pushed the FDA commissioner months ago on this issue, and I think they’re taking it seriously and I think they’re moving forward in the right direction.”
If Tester was pushing on it “months ago,” why wasn’t the Biden administration?
As National Review’s Jim Geraghty noted Friday, “President Biden and his team didn’t need to be mind-readers, they just needed to be news readers.” Geraghty pointed out that The Wall Street Journal had reported on the shortages back in January.
“Baby formula has been hard to find in many parts of the U.S. for months, sending parents searching for Enfamil, Similac, Gerber and other brands,” the Journal reported.
“Retailers and formula makers agree that out-of-stocks are a problem. They don’t agree on how severe it is and who is to blame. Chains like Walmart Inc., and CVS Health Corp. say the manufacturers are having supply issues; formula makers say retailers aren’t getting product to stores once it is delivered.”
This, by the way, was before the recall from Abbott Nutrition and the plant closure. Yet again, the Biden administration is trying to pin its problems on external events. (Remember how Democrats tried to make the “Putin Price Hike” out to be the cause of inflation in the United States, as if prices hadn’t been skyrocketing before the Russian invasion of Ukraine?)
But this is how the Biden administration rolls. Don’t blame it on them, guys. They’re not mind readers. Or, apparently, news readers. They were too busy invoking the Defense Production Act, so Americans can have access to materials necessary to produce electric cars, to notice there was a more pressing issue to be focused on.
While I doubt the DPA has yet had any effect on electric car production, in future formula shortages, one can rest assured that parents will have the Chevy Bolt of their dreams with enough range to make it to enough Targets and Walmarts in order to find a can or two of Enfamil.
As Tester put it, it’s “literally is a life and death situation in many cases.”
So, sure, babies might die, but we’re building back better already.
