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February 25, 2021

The Inaccurate Narrative Wars of the Biden Presidency

Plus, the popular rescue bill will be hard for moderates to puncture

 

President Biden is apparently both doing too much and not enough. (Evan
Vucci/AP Photo)

The Chief

In the first five weeks of the Biden administration, we've already
gone through two diametrically opposed meta-narratives, both of which
happen to be wrong. It's some impressive work from the traditional
media, taking its cues from a flailing conservative movement.

Amid a flurry of executive orders in the first couple weeks, the
argument was that Biden was going too fast and trying to do too much.
The New York Times editorial board set the tone a week after
Inauguration Day by counseling
,
"Ease Up on the Executive Actions, Joe." This was of course absurd
and wrong on two counts.

First, executive actions are literally the job description of the
president in the Constitution. Every decision a president makes is an
executive action. Second, Biden was perfunctorily reversing some of the
worst Trump actions but not doing anything close to pushing the envelope
of his authority. Just look at our Executive Action Tracker
and you'll see that Biden's only taken
action on 13 of the 77 items we've identified as available to a
president without Congress. If there was anything to complain about,
it's that Biden wasn't doing enough on this front.

This has completely reversed. Now the complaint is that Biden isn't
getting anything done. Here's Politico with the trend-setting

"Biden's Slow Start." The savvy have pointed to a lack of cabinet
confirmations and no legislative achievements. Here also we have a dumb,
context-free narrative.

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There are two factors in the slow start completely out of Biden's
control. First, the Senate was not under Democratic control until the
Democratic winners in Georgia were seated on January 20, and an
elongated negotiation of the organizing resolution that actually put
committees in Democratic hands didn't resolve until February 3
.
Rather than two months at this point, the Senate has been a functioning
body for three weeks, and one of them was spent on Trump Impeachment II.
They're now playing catch-up on nominations
.

Second, Biden decided-and this is partially on him-to put together a
$1.9 trillion comprehensive COVID relief package that includes about a
year's worth of policy
,
and to do it by reconciliation, and mechanically that's a
time-consuming process. It involved most of the attention of the House
in the past few weeks. They will pass the bill tomorrow, the Senate's
on track a couple weeks later (pending a couple things), and the
narrative will shift again to "how can Biden do so much so fast."

There's also the point that "trying to vaccinate the entire country
in the largest logistical project in modern history" is, you know,
happening right now. Not getting anything done?

Now, you can definitely say that Biden had the opportunity for an early
legislative victory, simply by putting the most urgent couple pieces of
the American Rescue Plan through immediately and daring Republicans to
oppose them. That would be the checks and shots strategy
,
and I'm still convinced it would have worked and been good politics.
It wouldn't have stopped an ice storm from blunting vaccination
momentum, but it would have funded a ramp up in capacity. It would have
ended the dissonance
over
Biden's Georgia campaign remarks about "immediate" check delivery.
And it would have robbed oxygen from this narrative about not doing
enough.

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And one other thing: it would have avoided a looming, pointless fight on
the rescue bill. Right now the bill is locked into the $1.9 trillion
figure, as per reconciliation instructions. So everything inserted must
lead to something else taken out. The House just added three new
measures worth about $12 billion (foreign aid, tribal assistance and
National Science Foundation funds), and will have to find offsets. In
fact, the House bill was already $31 billion over the limit. And because
the House added a fix to multiemployer pensions, it had to reduce the
extension of unemployment by one month, at a time when 11.4 million
people rely on that extension

for benefits.

The tactical mistake here was to put the reconciliation instructions
right at the $1.9 trillion line, without any built-in slack. But if you
took out checks and shots, that'd be $600 billion of wiggle room,
probably making it easier for a bigger number in the reconciliation
bill.

I recognize that these complaints-"should have engaged in more
aggressive executive action," "should have built more slack into the
reconciliation instructions"-aren't satisfying bumper stickers
like "doing too much" or "not doing enough," as if there's a
Goldilocks and the Three Bears just-right amount of executive speed. But
it has the benefit of being correct.

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Running Into a Buzzsaw

That $1.9 trillion rescue bill, by the way, is extraordinarily popular.
As in the most popular major piece of legislation in my memory.
According to Morning Consult
, 76 percent
of all voters back the bill, including a whopping 60 percent of
Republicans. Meanwhile Republicans in Congress are trying hard to keep
their support for the bill to 0 percent
.
They obviously believe they cannot be hurt by unpopular policy in a
divided country where structural advantages all favor them
(gerrymandering, Senate disproportionality, the Electoral College).

It's impossible for Republicans to muster up much response

to a bill three-quarters of the country supports. (The "Schumer bridge
," which
Trump Transportation Department approved, is particularly ham-handed.)
But it's also going to be really tough for Democrats.

For instance, moderates are trying to cut into

the $350 billion state and local aid fund, primarily redirecting some of
the money to longer-lasting infrastructure for broadband. Sen. Angus
King (I-ME) previewed this for us on Left, Right & Center
last week. I think
this is a mistake, for the reasons Josh Bivens gives
:
states have higher safety net spending right now because low-wage
workers have borne the brunt of this crisis, and public investment needs
to be higher than the constrained budgets of the past. But the biggest
problem for the moderates is that 76 percent. They're running into the
vast majority of their own constituents by trying to change this bill.

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That's going to play out on the $15/hour minimum wage increase as
well. It's not quite as popular as the overall bill, but at 61 percent

it's pretty popular. If this comes down to a fight between moderates
trying to cut back on the level, and progressives demanding $15, public
opinion will play a role. AOC has been previewing this, saying that
progressives will "take a stand
" against
moderate efforts.

You get the feeling the Democratic leadership would love to sidestep
this fight

by having the Senate parliamentarian kick the minimum wage hike out of
the reconciliation bill. But if they don't, the public's voice will
matter. We don't have a lot of experience of the usual centrists
running up against a bill with 76 percent support. I don't think they
understand the kind of heat they'll bring upon themselves.

What Day of Biden's Presidency Is It?

Day 37.

We Can't Do This Without You

Today I Learned

* Biden named three nominees

to the Postal Service Board of Governors, which would be enough to
depose Louis DeJoy as Postamaster General on a party-line vote. But at
least one holdover Democrat, Donald Moak, has publicly defended DeJoy.
(HuffPost)

* Current OMB deputy nominee Shalanda Young has gained favor

as the possible replacement for Neera Tanden as OMB director. (CNN)

* Biden reversed Trump's policy preventing immigrants

from obtaining green cards during the pandemic. (New York Times)

* On the other hand, removals for health reasons continue, while over
700 unaccompanied minors

are in custody without their parents. (Axios)

* Biden will send 25 million masks

to community centers and food pantries in low-income communities. (NBC
News)

* The U.S. report on Jamal Khashoggi's death will lay blame

at the feet of the crown prince Mohammad bin Salman. (Reuters)

* Most Americans want teachers to be vaccinated

before school reopens. (The Hill)

* The F-35 doesn't work
,
in case you're worried about wasteful spending. (Forbes)

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