While it appears the Biden administration is placing democracy as the main message in the 2024 presidential election, there are other issues that need to be addressed and cannot be ignored. What is clear is that without democracy and maintaining its structure and practice as we have known it, public policy issues that address citizen needs cannot be expressed and debated. Democracy practiced as we have known it for 250 years provides that ability for the majority to express its will, yet it gives the minority protection to convince voters they have a chance to become the majority view in the future. Democracy is for everyone. Nonetheless, there are public policy issues on the table in 2024, and the question of the direction of the country and the competence of the individual candidates to advance them, for good or evil, cannot be ignored. The elephant in the room in 2024: abortion rights. In Colorado, it will be on the 2024 ballot. https://www.denverpost.com/2023/10/03/colorado-abortion-pill-reversal-2024-ballot/?
The following originally appeared in the 9/28-30/2023 blog postings and is reproduced here:
Are age and competence still issues in 2024? They cannot be ignored and they can cut both ways. If age is a concern, so is competence and effectiveness. . If vigor is the only criterion, is it to be used for good or evil ?. There is a case to be made that Trump's second term will also be as incompetent as the first one Trump may be three years younger, but getting things done to help people? His failure is in his effectiveness at any age to implement his public policies have failed. He has used his appearance vigor to advance his own power enhancement, using fear, revenge, and violence as his tools. He plans to use vigor to turn our democracy into his autocracy. He is using his vigor to destroy those in his way.
Biden's wisdom and judgment are his assets; his competence ia based on years in the Senate and as Vice President. He knows how to get things done that help voters who need help. His track record in the past three years in getting his legislative agenda enacted is ranked by observers as the most since the Lyndon Johnson years. Biden still can draw this contrast as a counter to his frail appearance. Do not underestimate his effectiveness. Biden's book you cannot judge by its cover.
Competence is still an issue out there, though now secondary to the democracy vs anti-democracy emphasis. Aside from the House clown show, we see what kind of a future another Trump administration would have in store for us. More incompetence, counterproductive solutions to problems, and failure to address and enact goals were the track records of the first Trump term. His controversial attempt to grab autocratic power will distract the second Trump term. Even now, the House is tied up in knots by a few of the radical right who are obstructionists. They are just bent on stopping what everyone else in Congress proposed, and what they propose would surely die in the Senate. Power and attention are what they crave and what they are getting.
Biden's skills and wisdom got some of the most popular parts of the Trump agenda done. Infrastructure funding, American manufacturing, and jobs, jobs, jobs. The public policy issues Trump originally espoused, reviving American industry and employment opportunities, , and reducing the national debt, were good ideas, but his actions were failing before COVID struck. Raising tariff barriers got us nowhere in helping American industry, and a tax policy that benefitted the rich did not generate enough income to the treasury to offset the losses. Trickle-down failed. The debt soared under Trump by 43%, but only a part of the increase was due to COVID. In the first several years of Biden, debt increased only by 13%. Trump's holding infrastructure week once a year resulted in the road to good intentions, but nothing was built or funded until Biden's legislative skills got it done. Inflation fell under Biden from around 9% at the beginning to around 3%, far better than Europe's 6%, though most inflation depends on the Federal Reserve's control of interest rates. Biden kept Trump's appointee fed chair in office. While we are not where either Biden or others would like it all to be, the trend line is good and almost there.
An American First foreign policy espoused by Trump, weakening NATO, failure to deal with China's encroachment in the southeast Asian seas by killing trade agreements with China's neighbors, and bootlicking North Korea and Putin, made us weaker and geeenlighted Russia's invasion of Ukraine, destabilizing Western Europe, and revived nuclear sabor rattling. He made it worse or did not deal with the nuclear threat of North Korea and enabled Iran to become a threat again. Once again, his election would give hope to a Chinese grab of Taiwan because we become isolationists and leave Ukraine to the mercy of Russia, abandoning our support of Ukraine.
Calling climate change a farce in Trump's first-term and second-term plans did not stop the palpable effects of record hurricanes, fires, and floods. Biden is getting a handle on it, while he sensibly began to change to a green economy while seeing natural gas as a bridge to a green future. His efforts are beginning to gain traction. It is a start, at least.
Trying to undermine Obama care by replacing it with nothing else or ignoring the high cost of pharma as Trump did make a feeble attempt near the end of his term, but it was Biden who got it done.. Biden's reduction and forcing pharma to bid on Medicare meds is just now being felt. My daughter, an elementary school teacher, is now feeling relief from student debt, but Trump told his Secretary of Education she did not have the power to cancel student loan debt. The Supreme Court agreed. However, Biden figured a way to give some relief to those in public service segments. https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/politics/student-loans-save-plan/index.html
https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/a-status-report-on-prescription-drug-policies-and-proposals-at-the-start-of-the-biden-administration/
Statement from President Biden on Historic Action to Lower Prescription Drug Costs | The White House
Update: 10/6/23 GOP trounces Dems on economy and border security: poll (nypost.com)That inflation is still felt by voters means all of the touting of full employment, GDP growth, and Bideneconomics will not move the poll needle. The problem is that consumers do not see inflation decreasing so long as they compare grocery costs before COVID with what they are paying now..even if the prices seem to be leveling off or decreasing from the month before. The only hope for Dems is that the presidential election is a year away and we cannot predict what the inflation rate will be and if prices decrease enough to make consumers feel better. The other hope is that other issues like abortion and the GOP clown show, fear of a Trump dictatorship, and Trump's legal woes eclipse the economic issues.
Trump's building the wall and having Mexico pay for it failed as an immigration policy. True, Biden still has not solved that problem, either, since what is driving the wannabe immigrants shift from Mexico and Central America to Venezuela and other South American countries with their failed governments and economies. Biden must give more serious attention to this knotty problem. We may have stopped the non-existent "caravans" of "Mexican rapists and murderers", but now those knocking on our doors are victims of economic deprivation and fear of drug cartels and oppressive government policies that persecute the non-compliant, so more seek legitimate refuge. These require new approaches and greater border staffing and settlement assistance. Small steps have begun. Biden administration announces relief for Venezuelans in the US in bid to ease burden on NYC officials (msn.com)
Update: 10/6/23 Biden is heeding the call on immigration and now is building more walls. Whether the wall works is probably not the issue; it is, however, symbolic and political as he can point to a step he can take to placate even the growing sense in his own party that he needs to do something, anything, to stop the flow of economic refugees. In the meantime, Trump issues a clarion anti-immigrant, neo-fascist bullhorn to his white nationalist supporters and their allies: to continue, scroll down.
There are other paths to resolving the immigration issue, but they take money. From Unidos, We need humane immigration reform, not walls. -
What is the US national debt and how has it grown over time? (usafacts.org)
No comments:
Post a Comment