THREE TAKES ON THE BIDEN AGENDA

 President Biden laid out his ambitious agenda in a generally well-received speech to a pared down, socially distant joint session of Congress on April 28. The president apparently has the wind at his back in terms of public support for the measures he’s proposing. Polling indicates voters, including many Republicans, back Biden’s proposals.

That does not mean he has Republican support in Congress. If much of his program becomes law, it will happen because Democrats unify and pass

financially related matters through budget reconciliation. The fate of voting rights and police reform measures, to which reconciliation doesn’t apply, remains doubtful.

Though all three of us count ourselves as supporters of the president and his administration, we don’t have a unified view of all Biden’s proposals.  The differences are sometimes subtle and can turn on political calculations, not substantive policy views:

 

Henry:  All In                                                                   

Biden’s overarching themes hold great appeal for me. I particularly like the fact he has cast his program in terms of creating opportunity out of crisis. The United States still faces the pandemic and the economic fallout it created, not to mention potentially existential

threats in climate change and systemic racism. As Republicans increasingly claim systemic racism doesn’t exist, Biden and other progressives must push for changes in policing and attack economic inequality. These difficult issues offer an opportunity for much needed solutions we’ve put off long enough.

Biden has also struck a chord with me by emphasizing that his plans address the nation’s

need for reality and hope. That means legislation and an administrative approach that tackles problems in

concrete ways and offers Americans hope they can have better futures and an efficient government that works.

As for the individual components of Biden’s legislative agenda, I offer my total support on rejoining the Paris Climate Accords, reforming and revising the corporate tax structure so the wealthy and big business pay their fair share, universal background checks for firearms purchases, an end to so-called ghost guns that law enforcement can’t track, recasting the ways we look at and think of infrastructure, and creating a citizenship path for undocumented immigrants.

President Biden is on the right track and I’m there with him.

Woodson: Congress, Your Move                         

I find little in Biden’s speech with which to disagree. We will have to wait and see how

many of Biden’s policies become law. I hope they all do. These policies are the most progressive since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal.   

                                        

Reminding his fellow countrymen that he is a man of action, Biden opened his speech by pointing out that his AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN had already resulted in $1,400.00 checks reaching 85% of American families and 220 million Americans receiving Covid-19 shots. 

Biden elaborated further on his agenda:

AMERICAN JOBS PLAN – jobs in theconstruction of roads, bridges, rails, transit lines, replacing lead pipes in schools and day

care centers, and bringing high speed internet to the entire country. He urged Congress to pass pay equity legislation for women and endorsed $15.00 as an hourly minimum wage.

AMERICAN FAMILIES PLAN – 2 years of quality preschool and 2 years of free community college; $3,600.00 in childcare tax credits; greater investment in black, and tribal colleges.

AMERICAN RESCUE PLAN – lower premiums and deductibles for persons who get their medical insurance through the Affordable Care Act; and a reduction in the cost of prescription drugs.

Biden will pay for this with no increase in taxes on the middle class or poor. Only individuals and corporations who make more than $400,000.00 annually will experience a tax increase.

Biden announced the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan but remained committed to fighting terrorism abroad and at home,

saying that white nationalists were the greatest terrorist threat that the nation faced. He mentioned George Floyd by name when urging Congress to pass legislation to insure equitable policing and urged the passage of the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.

In my view, Biden got the policies and the politics right. Congress should pass the necessary legislation.

Rob: Consider at Least Tapping the Brakes

                         

I’m generally supportive of the administration’s

agenda. We must address infrastructure and climate. The corporate tax structure requires a  fix even if the federal government didn’t need one additional dime for Biden’s program or anything else. I see raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy as the necessary first step in ending our grotesque income inequality problem.

That’s the primary beef I have with the Bernie Sanders – Elizabeth Warren economic and tax

programs from which Biden has borrowed so  heavily. They propose tax increases for new spending. I propose tax increases because we  need a fairer tax system in which everyone pays their just share. Enacting the

tax increases without as much spending as Biden plans would make us a more equitable society and likely spur an economic revival reminiscent of the Clinton years. Forty-two increased taxes on upper income taxpayers and wiped out the deficit in the process. He presided over modest spending increases, but the main impact of higher tax revenue was holding down interest rates. Government borrowing didn’t absorb capital that became available for businesses, large and small.  We experienced prolonged growth that lasted into the George W. Bush years.

We should do much of what Biden proposes. I’m not interested in giving aid and comfort to obstructionist Republicans by opposing him. If I were a senator, when push came to shove,

I’m  sure I’d vote for his bills. We might, however, consider doing what he wants in bite-sized chunks. Just saying, you know.  

THE DEMOCRATIC RACE: THE SANDERS EXIT STRATEGY

HOW SHOULD JOE BIDEN TREAT BERNIE SANDERS?

With four more primaries in the books, the odds appear even greater former Vice President Joe Biden will win the Democratic presidential nomination. The delegate math, and the calendar, make a comeback by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders almost impossible.

Biden on March 17 won primaries in Florida,

Illinois, and Arizona (Ohio postponed its scheduled primary until June due to coronavirus concerns). By the middle of the next day, it appeared Biden had a pledged delegate lead of almost 300 over Sanders. That may not seem an insurmountable margin since nomination requires 1991 delegates. The upcoming primary schedule, however, and the current dynamics of the race, make it unlikely Sanders can overtake Biden.

We offer Sanders some thoughts on his course going forward. Each of us has different advice for him.  

The Daunting Math

Twenty-eight contests remain between now and the end of the primary season in June. If the candidates split the remaining unallocated delegates, an unlikely scenario, given Biden’s advantages in certain places, he would still have a delegate lead of nearly 200 going into the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. Sanders has said whoever enters the convention with the most delegates should get nominated, even without a 1991 majority.

An even split going forward would require a big change in the race. Biden has major

advantages in some upcoming primaries. Nate Silver of 538.com says Sanders needs a 20-point surge in the polls within the next week for any chance at getting nominated. That almost certainly won’t happen. What should Sanders – and Biden – do?

Henry: Work Behind the Scenes

I’m all for Biden reaching out to Sanders and his forces in a bid for party unity. But I think

this work should proceed quietly, outside the limelight. I certainly think Sanders should endorse Biden as a first step in an all-out unity campaign aimed at putting in place as fast as possible an effective plan for beating President Donald Trump. Both Biden and Sanders should treat that as Job I. Everything else is secondary.

 

Biden owes Sanders courtesy, respect, and

space for shutting down his campaign at a pace he finds comfortable, so long as that pace does not needlessly draw out the primary process. Beating Trump requires building an exceptional campaign infrastructure and the clock is ticking. The sooner Democrats start construction, the better.

Rob: Civility and Respect and That’s All

An old saw about wars holds that the winners write the history. Bernie Sanders should remember that as he contemplates what concessions he seeks from Joe Biden as the price of unifying the Democratic Party in 2020. Biden won; Sanders didn’t. Woodson’s list of demands he thinks Sanders should make, while laudable, sounds like an attempt at rewriting the history of this primary season. Biden won, in part, because Democrats – especially blacks and white

suburban women – rejected Bernie’s “revolution” and opted for someone who could put out the fire Trump started that now threatens the foundation of the American nation.

I’m all for welcoming Bernie’s supporters into the larger Democratic campaign. I hope Biden will hire some of his talented campaign staff, especially the people who masterminded his on-line fundraising effort. I hope Biden will, at all times, treat the Sanders forces with the dignity and respect they’ve earned by running such an effective campaign.  But, they –and Sanders himself—are not entitled to more than that. I hope the former vice president will resist promising anyone the moon. If elected, he has serious work ahead of him and he needs a minimum of encumbrances as he sets about that work. 

     

Woodson: Force Public Commitments

Elizabeth Warren has not endorsed Biden, though he has been the prohibitive favorite

for the nomination since the March 3 Super Tuesday primaries. Nevertheless, during the March 15 debate, Biden said he would choose a woman running mate and promote liberalizing the bankruptcy laws – all

Warren campaign positions. If Rob thinks Biden’s pronouncements were not the result of negotiations with Warren, I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell him. Biden needs Warren’s

 enthusiastic support to win the White House and knows it. She did what smart politicians do. She got Biden’s public embrace of her issues. She will offer her support soon enough.

Like Warren, Sanders has spent countless hours and millions of dollars in this

campaign. He also ran in 2016. Sanders will not drop out or throw his support to Biden without getting commitments from Biden on issues important to him, i.e. increasing the minimum wage, medical insurance for all, and free or subsidized college education.  Sanders has a right and a duty to his supporters to extract these concessions.

                           

Unlike Rob, I do not see the Democratic Party’s primary season as analogous to war. It’s more analogous to a debate among

business partners. Business partners seek common ground, not each other’s destruction. They have already agreed on the goal of the business (the Democratic Party). That goal is unseating Donald Trump for the good of America. To suggest that Sanders supporters are “welcome in the larger Democratic campaign” reminds me of how racist whites once spoke to black Americans. “You’re welcome in America as long as you do as we say!” That

attitude got the Democrats beat in 2016 and will beat them again in 2020. With all due regard to Henry and Rob, Sanders’s supporters deserve more than “courtesy and respect’ or “dignity and respect. Biden should treat them as partners.       

                                              

THE WOMAN QUESTION… AGAIN: How soon will we elect a female president?

The departure of Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren from the presidential race

assures that The United States will not, in 2020, elect its first female president. Her exit leaves a two-man Democratic contest between former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, with the winner facing incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in November. Many lamented the fact the country passed up a chance at joining the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and other democratic nations in electing a female leader. A diverse Democratic field that began with six women candidates, including four sitting U.S. Senators, ended up reduced to two white men.

          

Voters and pundits asked why. How much did

raw,  pure and simple sexism account for the fact all the female candidates flamed out? How does the United States elect a female president?

We care about the question and we’ve previously written on the subject. In February 2019 we examined whether some people won’t vote for a woman under any circumstances. In February 2020, we wondered how much the last two surviving women in this year’s Democratic race – Warren and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar—were being penalized for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss. Warren’s departure forced a new look at the issue, one we found we approach differently:

Woodson: Leaving the Best Player on the Sidelines

Elizabeth Warren improved the 2020 race as a political exercise and deserved a better

fate. She remains, in my view, the most intelligent candidate who ran. She offered detailed plans for solving a plethora of problems. She succinctly explained the  benefits and shortcomings of capitalism

and how she would corral its destructive aspects, yet make capitalism work for ordinary Americans.

Warren offered a compelling personal story, complete with Republican brothers and a painful recitation of repossession of her family’s car as she grew up in Oklahoma. Her path from public school teacher to professor at elite law schools is the stuff of inspirational movies and novels.  Successfully leading the fight for creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that fights predatory business practices confirms her grit, determination, and dedication to helping ordinary working people.

Why didn’t Warren get nominated? I see only two reasons, given her political talent and

the fact she presented a scandal-free personal and political history: (1) because of her commitment not to take money from special business interests, she couldn’t raise enough money and (2) sexism. Because of her belief that disproportionate corporate influence in

politics harms democracy, she wouldn't take Super Pac money until early this year, when it was probably too late.  As for sexism, her gender was not her choice.  That's something America must face and fix. Elizabeth Warren and America deserved better. 

Henry: The Electorate’s Fears Got the Best of Warren and Us

I share Woodson’s enthusiasm for Elizabeth Warren as a potential president and his disappointment about the gender bias that

helped  keep her out of the White House. She was the best candidate in the 2020 field. I always suspected the public couldn’t overcome sexist impulses that might impede her. I knew many voters would question her

electability for no reason other than gender. Too many people became amateur political prognosticators, speculating that others wouldn’t vote for Warren in light of Clinton’s defeat. 

I agreed with the CNN analyst who, after one debate last summer, called Warren “the best athlete on the field.” In many of the debates she was. Her destruction of former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg in the Nevada debate left her permanent mark on the 2020 race.

A win for Warren, however, wasn’t in the cards. Fear, much of it irrational, that Trump would intimidate any woman opponent made voters overemphasize her missteps, like her slightly clumsy handling of Medicare-for-All. At the end, my distrust of the electorate returned, and that distrust was confirmed. Voters thought she couldn’t win and that spelled the end of her candidacy. It shouldn’t have.   

Rob: A Broader View

Warren’s departure is symbolically important, but  I believe too many people

learned the wrong lesson from 2016 and from the failure of this year’s female candidates. America isn’t so sexist it won’t elect a woman president. We just need to give the right woman a chance.

I offer two simple propositions: (1) in 2016 Hillary Clinton got more votes than her male opponent and (2) the fact she didn’t win in the electoral college falls as much or more on her as on the electorate’s alleged inherent gender bias.

The first point just states an undeniable fact. The second requires that people like me who supported Secretary Clinton face inconvenient truths. As a presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton was an outlier and not because of her gender. Few presidential nominees in American history, and none of the women running this time, brought with them the baggage or intense dislike among voters  Clinton did. None of them made Wall Street speeches for thousands of dollars in fees. None of them used a private e-mail server for government business, then couldn’t explain it and only half-heartedly apologized. None of them, I’m confident, would have run a general election campaign without once landing their plane in Wisconsin.

We began this blog in July 2016 writing about sports teams afraid of hiring black coaches and executives after a previous black occupant of the job failed. That one-and-done philosophy in sports isn’t right and it’s not right in politics. Clinton’s flawed candidacy shouldn’t doom all women.

Neither Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Tulsi Gabbard, nor even Marianne Williamson lost because America won’t elect a woman president. They lost because too many people learned the wrong lesson from 2016. America will elect a female president. No reason exists for projecting the sins of a past female candidate onto this year’s women candidates. We’ve elected male presidents after other men failed in the job. What’s the difference?