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JUNE 6, 2023
Meyerson on TAP
When Historic Successes Don’t Move Voters
Biden’s achievements are significant, but don’t provide the kind of
direct individual aid that people actually notice.
On Sunday,
**The New York Times** trotted out one of its full-page semi-transcripts
of a discussion
<[link removed]>
it conducted with a small focus group. These groups don’t carry the
weight of the better polls, of course, but often convey enough
information to churn nervous tummies, or, if already churning, to inform
that churning.
Sunday’s was a real churner. It plumbed the sentiments of 11
"skeptical Biden voters," and made churningly clear their inability to
cite his achievements. Asked, "What are the things President Biden has
done or the issues that he has handled that you have been the happiest
about?" the first respondent answered, "Man, I’d have to think about
this one for a little bit." Said the next, "I also need a second to
think about it." The third then chimed in, "Student loan forgiveness is
something that is going to benefit me and almost every adult I know"—a
stomach-soother of an answer except that between the time of the Q&A and
the piece’s publication last Sunday, the student loan program had been
axed as part of the debt ceiling deal, and was likely to fall prey to
the Supreme Court Six even if it hadn’t been. The last respondent did
cite a Biden initiative that the Republicans couldn’t derail:
"infrastructure spending."
It should come as no surprise that the first thing the group could come
up with was the student loan forgiveness program. Unlike green
industrial policy, aid to the semiconductor industry, and the
infrastructure spending, the student loan program would have directly
and immediately helped individuals. That made it quite unlike the other
three, which set in motion the building of projects that will eventually
employ construction workers and more eventually employ factory workers
and even more eventually bring industries back to the U.S., shortening
supply chains and perhaps reducing prices, eventually helping consumers
and very eventually slowing the pace of climate change.
It’s direct and immediate aid—not projects that will eventually
provide aid—that people remember. When Franklin Roosevelt diverted
funds from the Public Works Administration, which necessarily took time
to gear up to build massive dams (Hoover, Grand Coulee) and bridges
(Tri-Borough), and redirected them to the Works Progress Administration,
which almost instantly put millions of the unemployed to work paving
roads and runways and building parks and schools, he was responding to
the immediate needs of people on the verge of starvation—but also
creating a project that everyone could see and (unless Republican)
appreciate. Likewise Social Security (which also established
unemployment insurance), and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which
established a federal minimum wage.
When Biden couldn’t get Congress to enact his Build Back Better bill,
that meant that virtually every program that would have provided the
kind of direct aid that people remember—paid family leave, the Child
Tax Credit, affordable child care, free community college—died on the
cutting-room floor. And while what is arguably his greatest
achievement—the trillion-dollar expenditure on COVID financial
assistance that has given us the fastest economic recovery in the
nation’s history and the only one that disproportionately benefited
the lowest-income workers—did provide income to millions who needed
it, it has never been heralded in the media for its historic
achievement, while the inflation to which it contributed is perceived as
Biden’s fault, though the costs of oil and housing and corporate
profit margins have all soared for reasons that have nothing to do with
his presidency.
Still, this brings us to what really is Biden’s greatest flaw: his
inability (as I noted
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last week) to deliver the kind of speeches that can actually convince
Americans of the merits of a cause, or even of his successful programs.
The presidency can be a bully pulpit, but only if the president can
deliver the kind of secular sermons that sway parishioners, or even just
hold their attention. Biden didn’t do that when the Build Back Better
bill was becalmed in Congress or when the Republicans took the
nation’s creditworthiness hostage. Nor was this failing largely a
function of age; those were the kinds of speeches that were beyond the
young Joe Biden, too. Though, to be fair, making that kind of speech on
behalf of the historic investments he’s pushed through
Congress—investments that will help millions, but indirectly and
eventually—would tax the most compelling of orators.
For which reasons, among many others, Biden is no sure thing in
2024—though be it noted that most of the 11 said they’d vote for him
again, given the Republicans.
~ HAROLD MEYERSON
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How Big Pharma Rigged the Patent System
<[link removed]>
Drug patents are supposed to expire in 20 years. Thanks to legal
trickery, though, it usually takes a lot longer than that. BY RYAN
COOPER
The Looming Child Care Cliff
<[link removed]>
In 2021, Congress issued grants to stabilize the child care system. Now
the money is about to run out. BY RAMENDA CYRUS
Casablanca for Real
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The Netflix series ‘Transatlantic,’ on the 1940-1941 rescue of
refugees from Marseille, is well worth watching, and contrasting with
the shameful neglect of refugees in 2023. BY ROBERT KUTTNER
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