What Planet are Biden Democrats From?

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July 19, 2022

Let’s “fisk” an article by Jonathan Chait in New York magazine on “The Democrats’ Failure is Complete.” Chait begins with

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Joe Biden once dreamed of an FDR-size domestic-reform agenda.

Really? With a 50-50 Senate and a 13-vote majority in the House? What planet was it again?

But the collapse of negotiations in Congress…

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Oh no! How could that happen?

…losing its chance to address any domestic social need in an enduring way,

Really? Do you Democrats really believe, cross your heart and hope to die, that you have ever addressed “any social need in an enduring way?”

…the administration is also having imperiled its global leadership on climate change and a global corporate minimum tax, two measures that hinged on Biden getting his own country’s house in order.

Oh right. Global leadership on climate change. Woo hoo. Look, Joe Cupcake and all the ships at sea: if you don’t come clean pretty soon and admit that the climate change grift makes Bernie Madoff look like an amateur, then we are going to have to call on the fraud department of the FBI… Oh wait, FBI… Fraud. Oh dear.

The official cause of death for the Democrats’ domestic ambitions was a decision by Joe Manchin to back away from measures he had previously supported, citing rising prices.

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Really? And why are both Democratic caucuses, in the Senate and in the House, relying on Sen. Manchin from White Trash West Virginia to fight inflation?  Don’t you guys care about ordinary Americans — let alone “oppressed peoples” Americans — suffering from rising prices? Or are ordinary Americans just collateral damage on your glorious quest to address domestic social needs?

The administration’s broad strategy was to use its first major piece of legislation, enacted at the crest of Biden’s political capital shortly after he took office, to stimulate the economy as it recovered from the COVID recession. Only after that would they craft enduring social reforms.

But, oh dear, how could the experts have foreseen, back there on the crest, that “the American Jobs Plan” would overshoot, “injecting more demand into an already heating economy” producing a “sour inflationary economy”?

And enduring social reforms? Such as what? Reversing five decades of Making Things Worse for blacks?

Hey, I know! Whatabout reparations from ruling-class liberals to blacks for 50 years of Making Things Worse? And, while we’re at it, why not reparations for the white working class “dying of despair” from a century of FDR-style domestic reforms? That would really bend the arc of history towards justice.

Anyway, as Bidentime went by,

Democrats proved unable to prioritize their competing social demands. Rather than anger professional advocates for any of the social spending programs they had supported by removing some programs to save the rest, Democrats continued pretending for months that somehow all their programs could be preserved.

But really, if these are all critically needed “enduring social reforms” how come all those “professional advocates” — professional, mind you — couldn’t get together and agree about Who’s On First?

I’ll tell you why. It’s because all those “enduring social reforms” are nothing of the kind. Government is nothing but “professional advocates” fighting over loot and plunder. Oh, the politicians and the “professional advocates” dress it up to look like history’s famous arc, but in reality it’s just pirates squabbling over the loot in a Howard Pyle illustration.

By the way, don’t you dare touch my Social Security.

In the end, Chait writes, the glorious Biden plan came down to taxes on the “ultrarich” and cutting prices on prescription drugs.

The proceeds from these measures — likely around a trillion dollars — would have been split between deficit reduction, energy investments (short-term fossil-fuel production, and long-term green-energy investment), and enhanced support for tax credits to help people buy health insurance.

Oh yeah: “deficit reduction, energy investments.” Long-term green investment: the special kind.

Hey, read this:

The persistence of Democratic opposition to raising taxes on plutocrats remains the party’s most damaging political liability.

Really? I had no idea. Listen wokies, we gotta keep the plutocrats liquid so they can be relied on, in an emergency, to flood the system with Zuckbucks to keep the regime in power, or elect a few more Soros DAs of a November morning.

Chait seems to think that a tax-the-plutocrats campaign could help restore the support of the working class. For, don’t forget,

The long-term prognosis of the party’s alienation from its multiracial working-class voters is grim. And the specter of the Republican Party’s descent into authoritarianism looms over everything.

Oh yeah. Never mind the solitary confinement of J6 rioters. Never mind the Feds pursuing everything Trump. Never mind the 30 crisis pregnancy centers attacked, and no arrests in sight.

No indeedy. It’s the GOP’s descent into authoritarianism that’s the real problem in America today.

Really: what planet was it, again?

Christopher Chantrill @chrischantrill runs the go-to site on US government finances, usgovernmentspending.com. Also get his American Manifesto and his Road to the Middle Class.

Image: Beckie

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