I’m not a financial genius, but I do have a family member who believes he is.

After all, this relative proudly displays a framed, oversized college diploma showing he earned a finance degree. Yet now in his fixed-income years, he regularly runs out of funds each month. As I learned to say with a sarcastic twinge in the South, “Bless his heart …”

I’d like to say the same to Papa Joe, who has announced repeatedly for a few months the financial claim that he is the first president in the history of the country to reduce the debt by $1.7 trillion. Sure, if you count the COVID relief funds expiring. But someone needs to explain to Joe that annual budget deficits are not the same as national debt. Since his tenure in office, well over $4 trillion has been added to the federal deficit.

I feel like Joe is pulling the same sleight-of-hand as I tell my husband when I go buy discounted fabric for all the quilts I will never finish before I die. Did I save money? Technically, yes. But did I need to spend the money? No.

My brain seizes up when I hear claims from Joe “watching the bridge collapse” or his burgeoning family falsehoods. Like many politicians, Joe lies. But he’s not even being subtle about it anymore. The whole claim about “Bidenomics working” is disingenuous when wages are not growing faster than inflation. The dollar is weakening, and we just keep spending.

Until politicians on both sides of the aisle start cutting government waste and their pet pork projects, I’m not believing a word from any rich men north of Richmond.

And Joe … your financial health card should be an “F.” You’re just plagiarizing talking points in a vain attempt for support.

C’mon, man!

Linda Mazunik, Lone Tree