IN DEFENSE OF JOE BIDEN: SEPARATING FACT FROM FICTION

 

These have not been the best of times for

President Joe Biden’s administration. One crisis or another pops up every few days – the Afghanistan exit, surging COVID-19 infections, immigrants clamoring at the border, the debt ceiling. Then

there  are the potential catastrophes looming over the horizon – a divisive war over abortion, threats of inflation, potential failure in Congress of the

infrastructure bills, and, above all, a voting rights disaster that could help fuel a Republican takeover of Congress in 2022.

Not unexpectedly, Biden has drawn increasing fire from the right. The heaviest attacks have come from the usual suspects in the right wing

punditry like Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, a Trump apologist who recently railed about Biden’s “unprecedented string of self-inflicted disasters.” Moderate conservatives like The New York Times columnist Bret Stephens have also unleashed torrents of criticism. Stephens wrote that he voted for Biden in 2020 in the belief he would “restore dignity and prudence” to the White House but now sees him as “headstrong but shaky, ambitious but inept.”

Meanwhile, the president’s approval rating has dropped 14% since he took office to 43%, his lowest to date (Trump averaged 41% during his four years). Though presidential approval ratings often dip during the first year, we think the piling on hasn’t been right.

 

Unfair, Off the Mark, Unjustified

Stephens began his column with a critique of

America that seemingly blamed Biden for “a diminished nation.” He observed that the country couldn’t keep a demagogue out of the White House, couldn’t win or avoid losing a war against a “technologically retrograde enemy,” can’t conquer a disease for which safe and effective vaccines exist, and can’t bring itself to trust government, the media, the scientific establishment, the police, or “any other institution meant to operate for the common good.”

While this list offers literary flair, it bears little relationship to anything Biden caused or has failed in dealing with. The fact Trump got elected president certainly wasn’t Biden’s fault. Biden hardly lost or didn’t win the Afghanistan war. His three immediate predecessors get credit for that. He got out  as he promised and

as the American people clearly wanted. No one has promoted vaccines as the answer to the pandemic more vigorously than Biden. Development of a stubborn resistance to vaccination, mostly rooted in a group of irresponsible obstructionists in the opposition party, lies at Biden’s feet? Hardly. The lack of trust in institutions began a long time ago. Stephens and others launching such criticisms should recalibrate their artillery. They’re off the mark. A great deal of what they say is unfair and unjustified by the facts.

 

Bad Optics Don’t Mean a Bad Job

Much of the criticism leveled at Biden and

his team stems from the Afghanistan exit.  Yes, it looked bad, but how likely was a neat and tidy disengagement from a 20-year military involvement the planners had at most a few weeks to pull together? It’s true American intelligence overestimated how long
the Afghanistan government would survive without U.S. military support. Even with better intelligence, however, the exit likely would have looked ugly.  The bad optics – especially people hanging off airplanes – didn’t mean the United States failed, given the circumstances presented. After all, the American military evacuated 82,300 people in 11 days.

                                       

             

                  PhotoCredit: @adityaRajKaul/Twitter

Republican critics harped on the idea Biden “left behind” some Americans and Afghanis who helped the United States. People get left behind in military evacuations. Every student of the Second World War knows the 1940 British exit from Dunkirk, hailed as a  masterful

exercise in military logistics, left many behind. Britain’s leader, Winston Churchill, became a hero partly because of that operation. Movies got made about it. The British, however, “left behind” one allied soldier for every seven they got out. That’s the nature of the beast. Exits from war get messy. Anyone who says they don’t either has an agenda or hasn’t thought through the difficulty of such enterprises.

 

What’s Been Right?

Despite bad headlines and carping columnists, Biden has gotten things right in his eight

months and change in office. Start with the COVID relief package that provided a path breaking child tax credit from which millions of Americans can reap significant benefits. That administration-backed legislation also gave relief for health care workers, help for schools in dealing with the pandemic, and even funeral-expense assistance for those who lost loved ones to COVID. 

Meantime, the administration has undertaken foreign policy initiatives aimed at restoring the American position in the world following the isolationist, go-it-alone  approach of the Trump

years. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, long seen as a Trump ally, recently called Biden “a breath of fresh air.” Johnson likely had in mind the president’s reengagement with the NATO alliance and his decision that the United States would rejoin the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords.

A great deal of work remains for this administration. Sniping by critics like Stevens illustrates the difficulty inherent in politics now. No president has much margin for error. Any criticism can so easily take off like wildfire. So many seek something they can jump on. Biden operates in an environment poisoned by the efforts of former President Trump and his right wing allies to undermine democracy because it no longer serves their cultural and economic

interests.  We offer a simple caution. Let’s at least understand the facts concerning what mistakes, if any, this president has made and recognize what he’s done right.          

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.