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February 19, 2021

Growing Pains Between Biden and the Left

On education finance, immigration and the minimum wage, the strains of
governing begin to show

 

President Biden met with labor leaders in the White House on Wednesday.
(Evan Vucci/AP Photo)

The Chief

The left has viewed Joe Biden with skepticism throughout his
presidential campaign and the transition to the White House. But a
popular story in recent weeks has been this idea that Biden has tamed
the left, through outreach and hiring of certain personnel and adoption
of certain agenda items. I think the transition was relatively smooth,
and the large relief package has kind of overshadowed everything else
going on.

But this marriage, if you could even call it that, was never going to
last. Progressives simply want more than Biden is willing to give. Yes,
Biden positions himself in the center of the party, and that center has
shifted left. But that's not going to be good enough for a lot of
people, and there's still decades of reflexive recoiling from
aggressive policy to cut through.

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We have seen this most directly in the debate over student debt
cancellation, which I think we can say that Biden really doesn't want
to do. He obviously is unwilling to cancel up to $50,000 of an
individual's debt, which has been set up as the left pole in the
debate since Elizabeth Warren got Chuck Schumer to come aboard with it.
But when Biden talked about this at the Milwaukee town hall, you could
see from his arguments that he isn't interested. He opposes the idea
of cancelling debt from people "who have gone to Harvard or Yale or
Penn," who would be eligible whether the threshold is $10,000 or
$50,000. (By the way only 2 percent of Harvard students
have
federal student loans; they have need-based scholarships.) He'd do the
$10,000 if Congress gave him a bill but he knows that Congress won't;
even if the filibuster is abolished it'd be dicey in the current
Senate.   

I think there's a fear that the broad public would get mad about
special breaks for elite college students, but the kind of people who
take out student debt are children of middle-class families. The left is
pretty invested in this issue, and there's been a lot of pushback. The
latest is that Biden will ask his Justice Department

to review the legality of executive action. But that will take many
months, and kicking things to a review traditionally is how politicians
make them go away.

But there are other painful breakups looming.

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Senators released a Biden-supported comprehensive immigration reform
bill

this week. But it appears to be dead on arrival, and advocates are
mainly wondering whether there's a strategy to pass any of it. Already
there have been rumors of piecemeal fixes
,
which doesn't exactly signal a strong negotiating position.

That's to be expected. But the bigger issue concerns Trump border
policy, where Biden is trying to thread a sharp needle

between advocates for a more humane system and moderates living in fear
of the charge of "open borders." Biden notably didn't put stiffer
enforcement measures in the immigration bill, but he's been deporting
immigrants, notably Black immigrants, at similar rates

as his predecessor. By one count over 26,000 have been deported
since
Inauguration Day.

Biden did attempt to institute a 100-day moratorium on deportations, but
was blocked by a judge in Texas. Yesterday, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) released temporary guidelines

for enforcement and removal. The guidelines will target resources

at threats to national security and public safety, and set up a
pre-approval system for cases outside of that framework. But this
obviously isn't a moratorium, and advocates believe Biden could go
much further while staying within the judge's order, by for example
refusing to deport asylum seekers who may be harmed in their home
countries, or expanding Temporary Protected Status for refugees from
countries experiencing disaster or civil strife.

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The ACLU says the guidelines "continue giving ICE officers significant
discretion to conduct operations that harm our communities and tear our
families apart." In particular the presumptions of what constitutes
"national security" or "public safety" are overbroad, the ACLU
claims, as they assume that "all border crossers are threats."

You can't talk about a split between Biden and the left without making
room for the $1.9 trillion rescue package about to move through
Congress. That includes a great deal of long-sought progressive policies

like a child allowance (though it could be better structured), robust
funding to support child care and expanded broadband infrastructure, and
bigger subsidies for Affordable Care Act exchanges. Administration
officials have been pushing for the biggest bill possible
.

But even here, a couple moves are concerning. Biden keeps saying, in
public and now in private
,
that the $15 an hour minimum wage will be taken out of the bill. He
always couches this by saying that he really wants the increase, but
it's completely unclear how things will proceed. (Admittedly, to set
up a parallel process for passage would amount to pulling it from the
rescue bill.) Biden's also floating a smaller number

like $12 or $13. In addition, with $1.9 trillion a cap in the
reconciliation instructions, you're starting to see bargaining that
would cut programs

like paid federal sick leave or health insurance subsidies for laid-off
workers out of the bill.

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Nobody should have expected Biden to turn into a bold progressive
overnight. And ambition always falters on the shores of governing. But a
lot of these things are within Biden's personal control, and the rest
within the control of the Democrats, without Republican interference.
The Biden team has spoken consistently about the need for tangible
progress. Obviously a successful resolution to the pandemic will go a
long way. But come 2022 and 2024 people are going to wonder what else
has been done to improve their lives. We know that complaining of
"obstacles" doesn't work in an electoral context. There's room
to get things done, and Biden had better figure out how to do them.

What Day of Biden's Presidency Is It?

Day 31. Biden will be at the Pfizer vaccine factory in Kalamazoo,
Michigan today.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* A reminder that I'm once again on KCRW's Left, Right & Center
today. Sen. Angus
King (I-ME) will be on. (KCRW)

* A "supply chain review
"
on the global semiconductor shortage only produces paper, not results.
The proof will be in the follow-up. (CNBC)

* Vice President Harris is taking on women leaving the workforce

during the pandemic as a signature issue. (New York Times)

* Biden has formally initiated the process

for talks on the Iranian nuclear deal. (Associated Press)

* Biden also pledged $4 billion

to the COVAX global vaccine program, although he will not send vaccines
to developing nations until there's increased supply. (USA Today)

* Wall Street executives spoiling for a fight

over climate risk and fossil fuel divestment. (Politico)

* Another way of putting this is "90 percent of schools are so
dilapidated and underfunded that they cannot institute basic health and
safety measures

expected of any consumer business." (CNBC)

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