[Despite his historic achievements, the public doesn’t think
he’s done much at all.]
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BIDEN THE UNAPPRECIATED  
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Harold Meyerson
February 7, 2023
The American Prospect
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_ Despite his historic achievements, the public doesn’t think
he’s done much at all. _

President Joe Biden talks to reporters before boarding Marine One on
the South Lawn of the White House October 12, 2022, in Washington.,
Evan Vucci/AP Photo

 

Joe Biden hasn’t been faring all that well in the polls for most of
the past two years, but the one splashed over the front page
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of today’s _Washington Post_ is the unkindest one of all.

It begins by asking whether respondents believe Biden has accomplished
“a great deal” or “a good amount” or “not very much” or
“little or nothing” in his first two years as president. A bare 36
percent answered “a great deal” or “a good amount,” while a
not-so-bare 62 percent opted for “not very much” or “little or
nothing.” Predictably, most Democrats—77 percent—were among that
36 percent of the approving public, while just 7 percent of
Republicans were. Among independents, however, the breakdown was 32
percent on the plus side, 66 percent on the minus.

Polled on the specifics of Biden’s achievements, Americans came up
with essentially the same responses. Did he create “more good jobs
in your community”? Only 34 percent said yes. Improve roads and
bridges? 32 percent. Lower prescription drug costs? 30 percent. Make
electric cars more affordable? 26 percent.

To be sure, these underwhelming numbers are partly due to Biden’s
programs only now beginning to kick in. Roads and bridges will take a
while. The $35 monthly cap on out-of-pocket insulin expenses only took
effect last month.

But there are deeper reasons for this troubling disconnect. For one
thing, some of Biden’s proposals only made it through Congress in
slow and fragmentary forms. Medicare will be able to bargain down the
prices of prescription drugs, but not for several years, and then,
just ten of those drugs.

Moreover, Biden’s real achievements—massive tax credits for
companies that invest in green energy, funding for semiconductor and
other domestic factories, and, yes, shoring up those roads and
bridges—won’t become visible to the untrained eye for some time,
if indeed ever. Franklin Roosevelt understood this dynamic when he
redirected some funding away from the massive projects (like building
the Boulder Dam) of the Public Works Administration to the nonmassive
but job-heavy projects of the Works Progress Administration. His chief
reason was that, with unemployment at 25 percent, he needed to get
millions of Americans to work ASAP, even if that work simply consisted
of paving roads or sprucing up parks. But he also understood that the
more immediate the job creation, the better the consequence
politically.

Now, Biden can claim an almost FDR-like record for job creation in his
first two years; that’s why unemployment is lower than it’s been
in nearly 60 years. But that was the result of his initial $1.9
trillion economic recovery package that passed at the start of his
presidency, which was both coupled and coincided with inflation. If
that inflation continues to subside and unemployment remains low, some
of Biden’s numbers should rise a bit—perhaps enough to get him
re-elected. But that’s no sure thing, particularly since the
media—and not just the mainstream media—hasn’t really looked at
the massive job creation effects that that legislation brought with
it.

Problem is, those parts of the Biden agenda that would have had a
greater impact on public consciousness—the Child Tax Credit, paid
sick leave, free public college tuition, and such—ended up on Joe
Manchin’s cutting-room floor. The parts that made it
through—revived industrial policy, green-energy investment,
infrastructure—were chiefly capital expenditures, to which it’s
not clear that the public pays that much attention. FDR is remembered
for establishing Social Security and the federal minimum wage, and
legalizing collective bargaining, more than he’s remembered for the
dams and airports he funded. Dwight Eisenhower was a popular
president, but I don’t know how much of his popularity hinged on the
creation of the interstate highway system he authorized, and which
took decades to complete.

It was to rectify such pervasive unappreciation, Biden’s aides may
believe, that the State of the Union address was created. We’ll see
how that goes later tonight.

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Harold Meyerson is editor at large of The American Prospect.

* President Biden
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