Joe Biden speaks on November 11, 2016. Photo by USHUD.
During the election in 2019, here’s how Joe Biden defined his candidacy: “Nobody has to be punished . . . No one’s standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change.”
Democratic primary voters rallied around Biden’s moderate appeal, patently rejecting both Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren‘s socialistic agendas, offers the WSJ.
After the primaries, however, Mr. Biden, as the Democrats’ nominee, endorsed the Sanders “unity” document. The document promised to radicalize America by:
- decriminalizing drug use
- turning local police departments into social-service agencies
- establishing a reparations commission
- restructuring American government and society on what amounts to a quota system.
When voters split their tickets, they rejected Mr. Biden’s general-election agenda even as they elected him president. Any legislative action for the next two years will have to be bipartisan.
If Mr. Biden yields to the voters’ verdict, he could follow (Bill) Clinton’s example and find areas of bipartisan cooperation, beginning with the economy.
So strong was the Trump economy that Mr. Obama claimed credit for it three years after he left office.
With more-enlightened trade and legal immigration policies, President Biden can make the economy even stronger. With the economy rebounding far faster than even the most optimistic forecasts and the imminent availability of a Covid-19 vaccine, bipartisan action could guarantee a V-shaped recovery.
Inaction or gridlock isn’t a viable response to the debt surge produced by the pandemic shutdown. Based on the explosion of spending in 2020 alone, the federal debt will leap to 104% of gross domestic product from 79.2% in 2019. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the growth in the national debt will exceed the growth of the nation’s income for the foreseeable future. And this debt crisis is occurring as entitlement programs are set to run out of money.
