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.  

LOOKING AT 2020 BEYOND CANDIDATES: WHAT’S REALLY AT STAKE

A clear distinction has emerged among the three of us in terms of our preferences in the race for the 2020 Democratic

presidential         nomination. We’ve realized the reasons for those differences go beyond merely liking one candidate’s health plan over another’s. What each of us wants in a 2020 Democratic standard bearer reflects our view of where this country should go politically and culturally in the next few years and what the 2020 election stands for as a marker in our politics. Here we offer a first look at that dichotomy (or perhaps, in our case, a trichotomy). We recognize explaining all this may require more than one 980-word blog post.

Woodson:  A Time for Bold Action

The problems we face require more than snip-around-the-edges incrementalism. We need reform of our immigration laws – specifically a change to our family separation policy; a health care system that makes health care affordable to all. The Trump tax cuts for

multi-millionaires must be rolled back. Those revenues should be devoted to development of our roads, bridges, and schools. Our children should have an opportunity for a vocational or college education, similar to how all Americans are now afforded a public primary and secondary education. The criminal justice system  should

be reformed so that charges and sentences are not influenced by the defendant’s ethnicity or economic status.

In convincing some Caucasian Americans their enemies are undeserving black and brown people, President Trump lowered the taxes of the rich and further divided the nation on the basis of race, national origin, and social strata. It is time to address the concerns of all Americans.  These objectives are not inconsistent with Rob’s desires for the nation. 

The interests to which I refer should not wait. Incrementalism has historically meant that the

needs of people of color - namely African Americans - must wait. Roosevelt’s New Deal was good for most white Americans, but in too many instances came at the expense of blacks. Roosevelt even refused to support an anti-lynching bill because he wanted southern white congressman to sup-

port his New Deal legislation. It is time to look out for all our citizens. The country’s leadership must be bold and “walk and chew gum at the same time”.  I do not agree with Rob’s notion that moving forward with a progressive agenda will make the fight for President’s Obama Affordable Care Act look like a “sixth-grade playgroud skirmis". The grade playground skirmish”. The legislation to make these changes has already been passed in the House of Representatives. It just needs to be passed in the Senate and signed by the President. In any case some goals are worth the skirmishes.  

Rob: Get Back to Normal First

While I share most (not all) of Woodson’s policy objectives, I believe the next president has a more pressing obligation. She or he must reinstate normalcy after the disaster of the Trump presidency. I see three things as essential: (1) restore respect for the rule of law; (2) operate the federal government without scandal and daily turmoil; and (3) repair our alliances around the world, thereby protecting our national security in a way consistent with our values and those of our allies.

Woodson’s agenda comes with two significant risks. First, a president seeking enactment of many of these proposals will embroil the nation in bitter partisan wrangling that will make the conflict over President Obama’s effort at passing the Affordable Care Act seem like a sixth-grade playground skirmish. Second, the political

backlash will likely consume that president and make him or her a one termer. Keeping a Democrat in the White House for at least eight years so we can flip the Supreme Court is much too important to sacrifice for the possibility of pipe dream policy proposals that will likely never become law.  For the most part, I’m with my brother Walker on where he wants to go, but first things first.   

Henry: Oh, I See What you’re Saying

Rob likes telling the story of one his first-year law professors who had the admirable quality of patiently listening to mostly incorrect answers given by students called on in class by gently telling them, “Oh, I see what you’re saying.” Professor Smith then steered the class to the right answer by picking out a few things the erring student said and weaving the correct answer into his response. I feel that’s the appropriate reaction to my colleagues. I fear they’re both right and both wrong and I should guide them both to a better place.

I wonder if where Woodson thinks America should go now and where Rob wants to go are that different. Will, fifty years from now,

America look that different under one vision than the other? Rob acknowledges he shares most of Woodson’s policy prescriptions (as do I). He just thinks we have more pressing problems now, that the house is burning down and putting out the fire takes precedence over building a new house.  But, he admits, the new house he’d build looks much like the house Woodson thinks we should start on now. 

 

The danger in Woodson’s do-it-now approach

lies in the risks Rob identifies – turmoil and potential backlash. The danger in Rob’s incrementalism lies in the injustice of putting off things that keep get-

ting put off.  As Martin Luther King, Jr told white ministers in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, the well-meaning moderate advocating patience often poses the greatest obstacle to justice. Civil rights couldn’t wait and some of the things Woodson thinks we should tackle now shouldn’t wait either.

 

Endless Conversation

We’ve only scratched the surface of this topic. Exploring ideas and differences like this forms the rationale for why we do this each week. Our masthead says “Endless Conversation.” The need for exploring topics like this demonstrates why that’s more than a slogan.