Below you will find a gazillion reasons why Biden has been an amazing POTUS. And these are all from just the last six months!
Read them. Skim them. Share them.
Short on time? Here is the tl/dr:
Want more? Oh boy do I have it. Grab that coffee and tuck in (then share this with your friends who say that Biden has not done anything/is losing it):
This recovery has defied expectations.
A recent string of economic data has underscored the resilience of America’s post-pandemic economic recovery. So far this year, inflation has come down, real wages have gone up, income inequality has declined, and we have the best job market for workers in decades. While it is by no means guaranteed, a soft landing is now clearly in sight.
This progress caught many economic forecasters by surprise. Last fall, the Bloomberg consensus indicated a 100 percent chance of a recession in the following 12 months. The Wall Street Journal’s survey of professional forecasters put the same recession probability at 63 percent.
Two years ago, many hypothesized that covid-19 and the fiscal policy response to the pandemic would push millions of Americans permanently out of the workforce. Instead, this recovery has been marked by the fastest rebound in labor force participation — the share of the population that is working or looking for work — in 50 years. After two decades of decline and a sharp drop at the height of the pandemic, prime-age labor-force participation has rebounded to its highest level since 2002.
Biden's ‘Big Deal’
The US signed a plan to develop a network of railways and sea routes with India, Middle Eastern countries and the European Union on the summit’s sidelines. It resulted in a powerful political coming together of Biden, Modi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
The India, Middle East, Europe Economic Corridor will integrate railway lines and port connections from India to Europe, across the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Israel, leading to faster transit of goods. The US President described the plan as a “ real big deal” and a "game-changing regional investment.”
Overtime pay would cover millions more workers under proposed Biden rule
The Biden administration unveiled a new rule Wednesday to extend overtime pay to an additional 3.6 million salaried white-collar workers in the United States.
The Labor Department’s proposed rule would guarantee overtime pay for far more non-hourly workers, raising the threshold to benefit such workers earning less than $55,000 a year.
“Today, the Biden-Harris administration is proposing a rule that would help restore workers’ economic security by giving millions more salaried workers the right to overtime protections,” acting labor secretary Julie Su said in a statement.
Eye on China, Biden Pulls Japan and South Korea Closer
President Biden hopes to cement the nascent improvement in relations when he hosts Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea at the Maryland presidential retreat. It will be the first time that leaders of the three nations have ever met outside the context of a larger summit, as well as the first time that Mr. Biden has invited world leaders to Camp David.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said this week that the meeting would give the three heads of state a chance to talk about concrete steps toward maintaining regional peace and stability.
That’s diplomatic speak for “the need for a response to the challenges coming from China,” said Tetsuo Kotani, a senior fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs.
With that in mind, one of the meeting’s key goals is to embed mechanisms of cooperation “in the DNA” of the three governments and to “create a new normal” that will be difficult to reverse, Rahm Emanuel, the U.S. ambassador to Japan, said in a recent interview.
Philip Stephens of Financial Times today pointed out how much global politics has changed since 2016. That was the year of Brexit and Trump, when those calling for national sovereignty and iron-bound borders seemed to have the upper hand, and it seemed we were entering a new era in which nations would hunker down and international cooperation was a thing of the past.
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But now, just seven years later, international cooperation is evident everywhere. Stephens pointed out that a series of crises have shown that nations cannot work alone. Migrants fleeing the war in Syria in 2015 made it clear that countries must cooperate to manage national borders. Then Covid showed that we must manage health across political boundaries, and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine proved that European nations—and other countries on other continents—must stand together militarily in their common defense.
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That embrace of cooperation is in no small part thanks to President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who have focused on bringing together international coalitions.
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The new global stance is on display in the U.S. right now as President Biden hosts the first-ever trilateral summit with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan and President Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea. This is not an easy meeting—Japan and South Korea have a long history of conflict—but they are working to mend fences* to stand firm against North Korea, including its missile tests, and to present a united front in the face of Chinese power.
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Cooperation between Japan and South Korea “helps us promote peace and stability and furthers our commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It advances our shared values and helps uphold principles of the UN Charter like sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity. It allows us to even more expand opportunity and prosperity.”
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In squeezing Russia, international cooperation has again been vital. The Swiss corporation Société Internationale de Télécommunications Aéronautiqes (SITA), which is responsible for booking, flight messaging, baggage tracking, and other airline applications, announced in May that it will leave Russia this autumn. Russian carriers are scrambling
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In his remarks to reporters on Tuesday, Blinken defended the administration's withdrawal from Afghanistan almost exactly two years ago, saying the decision to withdraw was “incredibly difficult” but correct. “We ended America’s longest war,” he said. “For the first time in 20 years, we don’t have another generation of young Americans going to fight and die in Afghanistan. And in turn, that has enabled us to even more effectively meet the many challenges of our time, from great power competition to the many transnational issues that we’re dealing with that are affecting the lives of our people and people around the world.”
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He noted that the U.S. continues to be the leading donor of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, contributing about $1.9 billion since 2021, and that the U.S. continues to work to hold the Taliban accountable for the rights of women and girls.
Biden administration to invest $1.2 billion in projects to suck carbon out of the air
The Biden administration will announce on Friday its first major investment to kickstart the US carbon removal industry – something energy experts say is key to getting the country’s planet-warming emissions under control.
Direct air capture removal projects are akin to huge vacuum cleaners sucking carbon dioxide out of the air, using chemicals to remove the greenhouse gas. Once removed, CO2 gets stored underground, or is used in industrial materials like cement. On Friday, the US Department of Energy will announce it is spending $1.2 billion to fund two new demonstration projects in Texas and Louisiana – the South Texas Direct Air Capture hub and Project Cypress in Louisiana.
“These two projects are going to build these regional direct air capture hubs,” US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told reporters. “That means they’re going to link everything from capture to processing to deep underground storage, all in one seamless process.”
Granholm said the projects are expected to remove more than 2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air annually once they are up and running – the equivalent of removing nearly 500,000 gas cars off the road.
The machines are being built to essentially supercharge the natural carbon removal already done by trees, bogs and oceans – which is not happening fast enough to capture fossil fuel emissions at the scale humans are emitting them.
White House senior adviser Mitch Landrieu told reporters these will be the first direct air capture projects at this scale in the US and “will be the largest in the world.”
Another project in Iceland that opened in 2021 removes about 10 metric tons of CO2 every day, roughly the same amount of carbon emitted by 800 cars a day. At the time, that project’s operator Climeworks said it was the largest one in the world.
The US direct air capture projects alone could increase global capacity for the technology by 400 times, said Sasha Stashwick, policy director at Carbon180 – an independent nonprofit focused on carbon removal.
“The industry’s very nascent at the moment,” Stashwick told CNN. “These are meant to be the first commercial-scale deployments at the mega-ton scale. It’s a very, very big deal.”
Biden’s Democratic Party is to the left of Obama’s. Thank a progressive
Those are some of the policies and political stances of President Biden, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, all of whom are generally considered part of the Democratic Party’s center-left wing, as opposed to its more progressive bloc. These views either weren’t pushed hard, or weren’t held at all, by President Barack Obama and the Democratic governors who were in office a decade ago.
Left-wing ideas and policies are more ascendant in American politics today than arguably at any time since the 1960s and certainly since Ronald Reagan won the presidency and pushed U.S. politics — including the Democratic Party — firmly to the right. It’s not that the left’s ideas are always winning, as recent Supreme Court rulings limiting affirmative action in college admissions and college debt forgiveness showed. It’s that progressive ideas are now truly in the mainstream — pushing the United States in a more equal and just direction.
When Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Obama were in the White House, Biden generally supported their more moderate policies. But as president, he has been decidedly more left-wing than his Democratic predecessors.
Joe Biden has racked up more bipartisan victories than any president of either party in a generation.
t: Most Republicans in the House and the Senate opposed the Respect for Marriage Act, but it nevertheless passed with a fair amount GOP support in both chambers. As we discussed soon after, the measure is part of a larger series of bipartisan wins, which includes an infrastructure package, the CHIPS and Science Act, an expansion of veterans benefits in the PACT Act, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act — the first major legislation to address gun violence in nearly three decades — and even the Postal Service Reform Act.
A Manufacturing Revolution Is Underway In The USA, Thanks To Joe Biden
No matter which way you cut it, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are stimulating a massive reinvestment in manufacturing, infrastructure, and good working class jobs in the United States. After decades of complaints, political potshots, and genuine economic pain from the loss of such working class jobs, we now have an administration that is doing something about the crisis and reversing the trend. And we had Democrats in control of the House and the Senate long enough to strongly support the president’s efforts and pass legislation that would enable the success. We are now beginning to reap the rewards — and there’s much more to come in the years ahead.
US manufacturing commitments double after Biden subsidies launched
The investment in semiconductor and clean tech investments is almost double the commitments made in the same sectors in the whole of 2021, and nearly 20 times the amount in 2019, according to data compiled by the Financial Times.
While the FT identified four projects worth at least $1bn each in these sectors in 2019, there were 31 of that size after August 2022.
There has been more than $40bn in planned capital spending since the start of the year. Asian giants LG, Hanwha, and LONGI have all announced deals in the past month, taking total large-scale investments to $204bn on April 14.
“We see right now the tectonic plates are shifting with respect to investment in the United States,” said US energy secretary Jennifer Granholm this week, referring to the surge of investment in recent months.
Biden’s massive manufacturing push is working and U.S. companies have already committed $200 billion to new projects
The Biden administration’s efforts to revive U.S. manufacturing appear to be succeeding, with some business sectors plowing in almost 20 times the investment in new U.S. manufacturing projects versus only a few years ago.
Manufacturing companies double commitments
Manufacturing is a huge part of Biden's reelection message, and the gains are spread across the country:
- The White House points to huge semiconductor-manufacturing plans for North Carolina, Ohio, Arizona and upstate New York.
- The Commerce Department announced Friday that 200+ companies have submitted statements of interest for CHIPS and Science Act funding for projects in 35 states.
What they're saying: "The last administration talked a lot about bringing jobs back to America, but failed to take real action. President Biden is taking action and delivering results — creating good-paying manufacturing jobs at home," White House chief of staff Jeff Zients said in a statement to Axios.
How Biden’s big investments spurred a factory boom
A surge in manufacturing construction across the country is grabbing the attention of economists and workers on the ground as legislative efforts to reinvigorate the U.S. industrial base are bearing fruit.
Experts say these changes have been long-awaited, and they represent a watershed moment for U.S. heavy industry and a shift toward more environmentally friendly methods of production amid an ongoing climate emergency.
“We waited for so long to have these kinds of initiatives,” Miki Banu, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Michigan, told The Hill. “This is probably the first time in my life when I’ve seen so many resources become available, which are able to let us put our ideas into practice.”
Initiatives to reshore U.S. manufacturing jobs in the wake of geopolitical tensions fanned by the coronavirus pandemic have been a key focus for senior Biden administration officials.
This has been especially true for the semiconductor industry, which experienced a major shortage following the pandemic. The semiconductor industry’s concentration in traditional East Asian manufacturing hubs like Taiwan helped to spur the passage of the CHIPS Act over concerns about the territorial ambitions of China, the U.S.’s main economic rival.
But even larger-scale trends in the international economy and growing
Biden’s Policies Are Revitalizing Chip Manufacturing in America
New laws are incentivizing chip manufacturers to bring operations to the United States, creating tens of thousands of American jobs, boosting the use of made-in-America semiconductors, and spurring investments in workforce training and education programs.
Biden bets big on bringing factories back to America
The supply chain snafus seen across the U.S. economy during the pandemic have bolstered a central plank of President Biden's economic policy: he says that now is the time to invest in America, make things in America, and buy things made in America.
Biden's vision is for the government to lure back manufacturing that moved offshore, particularly semiconductors and electric vehicles.
"Folks, where is it written that America can't once again be the manufacturing capital of the world?" Biden said on a tour earlier this month of a Cummins plant in Minneapolis that makes a device used to produce clean power.
Biden has embraced what's known as 'industrial policy'
In speech after speech as he gears up for his reelection bid, Biden is making the case for his brand of industrial policy — using taxes, subsidies and regulations to systematically shape the economy.
Making Manufacturing Great Again
Why are Biden policies producing a manufacturing revival but Trump policies didn’t? Well, Trump’s trade policy was simply incompetent: Because it raised tariffs on industrial inputs as well as consumer goods, it raised costs and may well have reduced manufacturing employment. And the Trump tax cut was based on the belief that if you let corporations keep more of their profits, they’ll invest the money rather than use it to, say, buy back shares; this belief was proved wrong.
Biden’s industrial policies, by contrast, are largely focused on creating demand for U.S.-manufactured products, for example by subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles. And business investment, while far less sensitive to tax rates than legend has it, is very responsive to demand.
And so we’re having a huge manufacturing revival.
Bidenomics Is ‘America First’ With a Brain
With a 250-page White House report on “supply chain resilience,” and the U.S. Senate’s approval of a $250-billion bill to compete with a rising China, the administration is trying to launch the United States on a new path toward rebuilding economic self-sufficiency, jump-starting innovation, and spreading economic benefits more broadly among Americans. Trump promised in his first speech as president to “remove the rust from the rust belt and usher in a new industrial revolution,” and then accomplished nothing of the sort. Biden may usher in that revolution.
The new White House report is ostensibly focused on supply chain security in four technologies: semiconductors, advanced batteries, critical minerals, and pharmaceuticals. But the document offers a far-reaching critique of the last several decades of U.S. international economic policy, arguing that both government and the private sector have “prioritized efficiency and low costs over security, sustainability and resilience.” It calls for a fundamental redirection with an ambitious set of goals: revitalizing U.S. manufacturing, speeding up deployment of green technologies, improving supply security and resilience in critical sectors, creating new union jobs, reducing economic and racial inequality, and spreading wealth regionally across the country.
Biden-Harris Administration Announces Over $40 Billion to Connect Everyone in America to Affordable, Reliable, High-Speed Internet
High-speed internet is no longer a luxury – it is necessary for Americans to do their jobs, to participate equally in school, access health care, and to stay connected with family and friends. Yet, more than 8.5 million households and small businesses are in areas where there is no high-speed internet infrastructure, and millions more struggle with limited or unreliable internet options. Just like Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Rural Electrification Act brought electricity to nearly every home and farm in America, President Biden and Vice President Harris are delivering on their historic commitment to connect everyone in America to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by the end of the decade.
The Department of Commerce announced funding for each state, territory and the District of Columbia for high-speed internet infrastructure deployment through the Broadband Equity Access and Deployment (BEAD) program—a $42.45 billion grant program created in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and administered by the Department of Commerce. This announcement—the largest internet funding announcement in history—kicks off the three-week Administration-wide Investing in America tour, where President Biden, Vice President Harris, First Lady Jill Biden, Cabinet members, and Senior Administration Officials will fan out across the country to highlight investments, jobs, and projects made possible by President Biden’s economic agenda.
Among the highlights:
- Awards range from $27 million to over $3.3 Billion, with every state receiving a minimum of $107 million.
- 19 states received allocations over $1 billion with the top 10 allocations in Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Washington.
- With these allocations and other Biden administration investments, all 50 states, DC, and the territories now have the resources to connect every resident and small business to reliable, affordable high-speed internet by 2030.
The Weird Sleeper Issue Biden Is Betting on for His Re-Election
“junk fees,” the surprise costs consumers face when they want to check a bag on an airline or buy a concert ticket online.
It’s those little annoying fees—fees that many Republicans want to protect and most Democrats want to dismantle—that Biden and the White House think can be a surprise winner.
Democrats are betting Republicans won’t have a good answer why they think you should face a surprise cost when you want to, say, book a vacation.
And more than just winning over voters because they’re trying to save consumers a few bucks, Democrats think the issue can actually be revealing of the GOP’s pro-corporate ideology—cutting into MAGA messaging that has convinced many Americans that Trump and Republicans are looking out for them.
Biden is vying for a whole of government approach on the issue, from Congress to agencies, to tackle junk fees.
It’s niche, but it’s tangible—and his allies say that’s by design.
“The genius of Joe Biden’s presidency has been to deliver changes that people feel every day,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) told The Daily Beast.
“It’s politically smart, but it’s also the right thing to do. To show people that government can be on the side of people, not just always helping out big corporations,” she said.
Warren pointed to things like the $35 cap on insulin and student debt forgiveness as policy issues that are tangible for Americans.
“And now junk fees,” she added.
Biden announces Live Nation and Ticketmaster will allow consumers to see all fees up front
President Joe Biden announced from a White House roundtable on Thursday that entertainment giant Live Nation (LYV) and ticketing behemoth Ticketmaster have pledged to give US consumers the ability to see the full price of tickets up front, minimizing the frequently frustrating experience of watching additional fees add up late in the checkout process when buying online.
The announcement came amid increased pressure on the industry from debacles over exorbitant ticketing fees and as the president has urged Congress to pass legislation targeting other hidden costs paid by consumers throughout the economy. It marked Biden’s latest effort to address kitchen-table issues as economic concerns remain top of mind for voters heading into the 2024 election.
“The solution is what is called ‘all-in pricing’ and that’s where companies fully disclose their fees up front, when you start shopping, so you’re not surprised at the end when you check out,” Biden said at the White House event.
The Calm Man in the Capital: Biden Lets Others Spike the Ball but Notches a Win
President Biden brokered a debt limit deal by following instincts developed through long, hard and sometimes painful experience in Washington.
In the days since he struck a deal to avoid a national default, President Biden has steadfastly refused to boast about what he got as part of the agreement.
“Why would Biden say what a good deal it is before the vote?” he asked reporters at one point, referring to himself in the third person. “You think that’s going to help me get it passed? No. That’s why you guys don’t bargain very well.”
While Mr. Biden knew that would aggravate progressives in his own party, he gambled that he could keep enough of them in line without public chest-beating and figured that it was more important to let Mr. McCarthy claim the win to minimize a revolt on the hard right that could put his speakership in danger. Indeed, in private briefing calls following the agreement, White House officials told Democratic allies that they believed they got a good deal, but urged their surrogates not to say that publicly lest it upset the delicate balance.
and what did they get?
While Mr. Biden knew that would aggravate progressives in his own party, he gambled that he could keep enough of them in line without public chest-beating and figured that it was more important to let Mr. McCarthy claim the win to minimize a revolt on the hard right that could put his speakership in danger. Indeed, in private briefing calls following the agreement, White House officials told Democratic allies that they believed they got a good deal, but urged their surrogates not to say that publicly lest it upset the delicate balance.
Republicans’ efforts to cancel clean-energy investments and block student loan forgiveness were stripped out of the final agreement, and they had to settle for trimming $20 billion from Mr. Biden’s $80 billion plan to bolster Internal Revenue Service efforts to target wealthy tax cheats rather than cancel it altogether.
But what about those work requirements?
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office scoring of the bill ... said that the additional work requirement imposed on able-bodied people aged 18–54 without dependents to receive food benefits is outweighed by the expansion of those benefits to veterans, unhoused people, and children aging out of foster care. The CBO estimates that the measure will add 78,000 people a month to food assistance programs.
Biden won on the debt ceiling. Why doesn’t he want it to look that way?
No, Biden did not get the “clean” debt bill he insisted on at the outset, when he said he wouldn’t negotiate with hostage-takers. But that was all posturing. Just because you walk in and tell the car dealer that you intend to pay thousands below his asking price doesn’t mean you seriously expect to end up there.
In any tense negotiation over government spending, the real goal isn’t to deflect every demand from the other side. It’s to make compromises mainly where the policies were likely going to change anyway, but where it’s advantageous if you can pin those changes on your opponents. By that standard, Biden couldn’t have done much better.
Biden managed to a score significant victory ahead of 2024: a high-stakes compromise across ideological lines, and images of the president arm in arm with a Republican speaker who seemed to loathe him just a week before.
So what if the compromise could reasonably be compared to Appomattox? Who cares whether the working relationship between the two men ends up being shallow and short-lived?
For Biden, in the run-up to another campaign, the most useful message here is that he is making Washington work like he promised — not that he’s rolling over his adversaries.
Winner: Joe Biden
Biden’s handling of the debt ceiling issue has been repeatedly second-guessed in recent weeks. Initially, he claimed he wouldn’t negotiate on the topic at all, but he also essentially ruled out using his own executive authority to avert a default — hoping Republicans would simply cave.
But as the crisis date drew nearer with no sign of a GOP cave, Biden had the good sense to realize his initial plan wasn’t working. Furthermore, he knew there was no scenario in which he would have avoided negotiating with Republicans on this year’s spending levels — eventually, the House needed to pass bills funding the government.
Biden would have preferred to have those talks without the debt ceiling hanging over his head. But he eventually climbed down and agreed to talk to the GOP, hoping a reasonable deal could be struck.
And at the end of the day, that’s what he ended up with. Biden did not defeat Republicans, nor was he strong-armed by them into making horrendous concessions. Rather, the two sides compromised. Biden averted an economic crisis without making extraordinary policy changes, and took the debt ceiling issue off the table until after the 2024 election — overall, a pretty good outcome for the sitting president.
The debt ceiling deal cements the bipartisan consensus that Medicare and Social Security should not be touched to reduce the deficit. This is a major shift in the GOP, which tried to privatize Social Security under George W. Bush in 2005 and backed Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to privatize Medicare in 2011.
Biden plan will give more than 100 federal buildings green upgrades
Nearly three decades ago, when the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center opened its doors, it became the nation’s second-largest federal building — and it was largely powered by fossil fuels.
Now, under a Biden administration initiative, the building will get a green makeover through the installation of heat pumps, more efficient lightbulbs and other climate-friendly appliances.
It’s one of more than 100 federal facilities that will become all-electric or net-zero emissions using nearly $1 billion from Democrats’ landmark climate law, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act, according to details shared exclusively with The Climate 202 by the General Services Administration.
The plan underscores how Biden has sought to leverage Washington’s purchasing power to slash the government’s carbon footprint. The president signed an executive order in 2021 directing the government to become carbon-neutral by 2050, with federal buildings meeting this target by 2045.
Biden is delivering on his most far-fetched pledge: Compromise
The president’s congenital centrism is easy to criticize, especially in this era of hard, polarizing views. He’s a conciliator, a dealmaker who likes to say yes and has trouble saying no. He’s also risk-averse, and he avoids escalation when facing potential catastrophe, whether it’s war with Russia or a budget default.
But Biden’s critics miss the glaringly obvious fact that he is behaving precisely as he said he would. His inaugural address was a pledge to restore normal order. “I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy,” he said, but still, “we can join forces, stop the shouting, and lower the temperature.”
Join forces with Republicans? Was Biden nuts? Yet gradually over the past two years, dodging brickbats from the left wing of his party, he has done it. First with a bipartisan infrastructure bill, then with a modest gun-control measure, then with the bipartisan Chips Act, and finally with the budget agreement. As Biden said on Wednesday, when the House passed the deal, “I have been clear that the only path forward is a bipartisan compromise that can earn the support of both parties.”
“My whole soul is in this: Bringing America together,” Biden said at his inauguration. He meant it, and this week he delivered.
Biden’s underrated deal-making prowess strikes again
President Biden’s capacity to overperform after an onslaught of negative press and Democratic hand-wringing is second to none. He did it with the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, NATO solidification and expansion, and now with the debt ceiling deal. It’s hard to conceive of an outcome more favorable to Biden.
Recall where this began: the Republican House Freedom Caucus making promises such as repealing much of the Inflation Reduction Act (including eliminating $80 billion in new funds for the Internal Revenue Service), capping nondefense spending at fiscal 2022 levels for a decade and blocking Biden’s $400 billion proposed student debt relief. None of that happened.
To sum up: Biden brushed back the litany of outrageous demands, kept his spending agenda and tax increases intact and got his two-year debt limit increase. And in making a deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Biden helps stoke dissension on the GOP side as the extreme MAGA wing denounces the agreement.
The White House may finally get airlines to pay you for hellish delays
The White House is out with a new effort aimed at tackling some of travelers’ peskiest recurring concerns: flight delays and cancellations. It’s the latest in a larger Biden administration effort to focus on pro-consumer policies ahead of the 2024 election.
Under a new rule, the Department of Transportation will consider, the federal government could require airlines to offer cash payments for long delays and mandate they provide more compensation for cancellations. Currently, no major airlines provide cash payments for passengers experiencing a controllable delay that pushes their trip more than three hours, according to the administration. That’s partly because they’re not required to by law.
Biden Administration Moves to Restore Endangered Species Protections
The Biden administration moved on Wednesday to make it easier to protect wildlife from climate disruptions and other threats, restoring protections to the Endangered Species Act that President Donald J. Trump had removed.
Three separate regulations proposed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service would make it harder to remove a species from the endangered list and restore a provision that strengthens protections for threatened species, the classification one step below endangered.
The rules also eliminate a Trump-era policy that would have allowed regulators to factor in economic assessments, like estimates of lost revenue for oil and gas operations, when deciding whether a species warrants protection.
Listing species as threatened or endangered must be done, the proposed rule reads, “without reference to possible economic or other impacts of such determination” and be made only based on the scientific evidence.
Biden unveils new order to protect access to contraception
US President Joe Biden has signed an executive order that aims to strengthen access to contraception in the United States, as the country nears the one-year anniversary of a Supreme Court decision that overturned the constitutional right to abortion.
The White House said on Friday that Biden’s order would increase the affordability of contraception and family planning services, as Republican-led states seek to roll back access to reproductive healthcare.
Friday’s executive order directs federal departments to consider ways to boost access to affordable, over-the-counter contraception, including emergency contraception, the White House said. This could include convening pharmacies, employers, and insurers to explore the issue.
It also directed the government to consider requiring private insurers to offer expanded contraception options under the Affordable Care Act, such as by covering more than one product and streamlining the process for obtaining care.
Biden signs bipartisan deal to avert debt default
The nearly 15-minute address served as a victory lap for the president after the Senate passed the legislation he negotiated with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to raise the debt ceiling for two years and cut federal spending.
"No one got everything they wanted, but the American people got what they needed," he said.
In what appeared to be a nod to one of this key arguments for reelection, Biden underscored the type of steady leadership he asserts he can continue to provide in comparison to some of the partisan fighting being waged by more hardline Republicans, including leading Republican candidates for president.
Why Biden Is Getting More Bipartisan Laws Than Anyone Expected
There is more happening during the Biden administration. The bills are bigger, and the subjects they cover are less obscure. Infrastructure is a revealing window into the change. President Obama pleaded with Republicans to pass infrastructure upgrades that their business allies were begging for, to no avail. Republicans blocked all these investments by insisting they be paid for and then refusing to compromise on the funding. Under Biden, Republicans simply permitted the spending to be financed with a series of budget gimmicks and deficit spending.
The gun-safety bill provides an even stronger example: The bill concerns a policy that lies close to the nerve center of the culture wars, and it never would have come together if not for an intensive wave of national press coverage. And while its provisions are quite modest, most observers would have predicted that no bill at all would pass.
Biden Overhauls Military Justice Code, Seeking to Curb Sexual Assault
President Biden gave final approval on Friday to the biggest reshaping in generations of the country’s Uniform Code of Military Justice, stripping commanders of their authority over cases of sexual assault, rape and murder to ensure prosecutions that are independent of the chain of command.
By signing a far-reaching executive order, Mr. Biden ushered in the most significant changes to the modern military legal system since it was created in 1950. The order follows two decades of pressure from lawmakers and advocates of sexual assault victims, who argued that victims in the military were too often denied justice, culminating in a bipartisan law mandating changes.
The White House called the changes to the military justice system “a turning point for survivors of gender-based violence in the military” and said they kept promises Mr. Biden made as a candidate.
“It is a monumental step,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council. “Any change to the Uniform Code of Military Justice is a big deal. This one is particularly important given the scourge of sexual assault and sexual harassment that the military still continues to wrestle with.”
The Biden administration seeks to protect nearly 1 million acres surrounding the Grand Canyon where there are uranium deposits amid tribal nations’ cultural and sacred sites.
The Biden administration announced the creation of a new national monument surrounding the Grand Canyon in the hopes of protecting it from mining and development. But that still won’t stop a controversial mine from producing uranium within the monument’s boundaries.
Biden’s designation of a new national monument is expected to protect nearly 1 million acres of land and stop new mining and development. But with mining rights already grandfathered in, the existing Pinyon Plain Mine is an exception.
Biden administration names 10 prescription drugs for price negotiations
The Biden administration Tuesday identified 10 expensive prescription drugs it has chosen for price negotiations with pharmaceutical manufacturers as the government seeks to ease the financial burden on older and disabled Americans. The announcement marks an unprecedented step in a long political war over the nation’s exorbitant drug costs even as the pharmaceutical industry is still trying to block the plan.
“Today is the start of a new deal for patients where Big Pharma doesn’t just get a blank check at your expense and the expense of the American people,” Biden said in remarks Tuesday from the White House East Room. Referring to the spate of lawsuits alleging that the negotiations are unconstitutional, he said, “We’re going to keep standing up” to the pharmaceutical industry. “I’ll have your back,” he said, addressing the nation’s consumers.
Biden Administration Proposes Rule To Curb Disability Discrimination In Health Care
Federal officials are proposing new regulations prohibiting medical providers from discriminating against people with disabilities and setting new standards for accessibility at the doctor’s office.
Specifically, the rule would bar medical treatment decisions from being based on biases or stereotypes about disabilities. Likewise, judgements about the value of an individual’s life or their burden on others could not factor into treatment decisions related to organ transplants, life-sustaining care, crisis standards of care or otherwise.
In addition, the proposal would ensure that child welfare programs do not discriminate against individuals with disabilities in parent-child visitation, reunification services, child removals and child placement, guardianship, parenting skills programs, foster and adoptive parent assessments and other services.
Biden’s new Climate Corps will train thousands of young people
President Biden on Wednesday announced an initiative to train more than 20,000 young people in skills crucial to combating climate change, such as installing solar panels, restoring coastal wetlands and retrofitting homes to be more energy-efficient.
In a TikTok video Monday that racked up more than 16,000 views, the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate group, declared that “Dark Brandon would pass a CCC” — a reference to a meme that Biden’s 2024 campaign has embraced.
Biden’s move bypasses gridlock on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have introduced legislation to establish a Civilian Climate Corps that is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House.
Economy adds 336,000 jobs in September, in a stunning gain
The U.S. economy churned out a blockbuster 336,000 jobs in September, smashing economists’ expectations
The economy’s defiance has worked out for now, with a recession nowhere in sight
“Bidenomics is about investing in America and investing in American workers,” Biden said, adding, “We’re creating good jobs in communities all across the country, including in places that have been left behind.”
Biden administration advises colleges on how to preserve diversity
The Biden administration urged colleges Thursday to give “meaningful consideration” to adversity that applicants have faced — including financial hardship and personal experiences of racial discrimination — to promote diversity on campuses after the Supreme Court struck down the use of race-based affirmative action in admissions.
A new report from the Education Department listed that measure among several that might make a difference. Among them were investment in outreach programs to disadvantaged communities; partnerships with community colleges and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs); and increased financial aid to help families afford tuition.
The Biden administration is pushing wealthy institutions to do far more to help disadvantaged students.
Biden’s new Climate Corps will train thousands of young people
President Biden on Wednesday announced an initiative to train more than 20,000 young people in skills crucial to combating climate change, such as installing solar panels, restoring coastal wetlands and retrofitting homes to be more energy-efficient.
In a TikTok video Monday that racked up more than 16,000 views, the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led climate group, declared that “Dark Brandon would pass a CCC” — a reference to a meme that Biden’s 2024 campaign has embraced.
Biden’s move bypasses gridlock on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) have introduced legislation to establish a Civilian Climate Corps that is unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House.
Biden administration cracks down on career programs that saddle students with debt
President Biden’s administration is tightening federal oversight of career training programs that saddle students with unaffordable education debt, an effort that could hamstring some for-profit colleges.
On Wednesday, the Education Department finalized regulations that would cut off federal student aid to vocational programs whose graduates consistently have high loan payments relative to their income.
The rules are the culmination of years of debate over the responsibility career programs have to ensure their graduates receive “gainful employment.” The restrictions could place 1,700 programs serving 700,000 students at risk of losing federal student aid, according to the department.
“President Biden has made himself clear that as we fight for greater college affordability, we must demand greater accountability,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “We can’t keep throwing taxpayer-funded financial aid dollars at colleges that cost students an arm and a leg and then living in a ditch, unable to climb the economic ladder.”
The article is titled: How Bidenomics Has Finally Defeated Reaganomics but really it is about how amazing a President Joe Biden has been.
It starts off with an overview
The last thing many of us expected when Joe Biden became president was that he would be a revolutionary. But just over two years into Biden’s presidency, there is no doubt that he has done more to dramatically transform U.S. policy and thinking in more areas than any of his predecessors since Franklin Roosevelt.
America had failed to adequately invest in its infrastructure for over six decades when Biden made it a priority once again. Biden’s prioritized investment in combating climate change to a degree that no past administration ever did. On foreign policy, he executed the pivot away from a Middle East and terrorism focus to a long-term commitment to placing the Indo-Pacific region and our rivalry with China atop our list of priorities.
Remarkably, he did this while simultaneously handling the threats associated with Europe’s largest land war since World War II and reinvigorating America’s most important alliance, NATO, in a way few thought possible just years ago. He stopped the impetus toward isolation and inaction internationally of the presidencies that immediately preceded his.
What is more, none of the transformations cited above are actually the biggest the Biden administration has overseen.
And then it talks about the biggest thing Biden has done — finally starting to turn the country around from the massive damage that came from Reagonomics.
From day one, Biden has profoundly transformed U.S. economic policy—and related social and international policies. Biden is the man who finally slew Reaganomics and the huckster’s brew of “trickle-down” and “the markets know best” policies at its core. He is the one who at last put an end to the “Washington consensus” that has served the rich worldwide and left the poor to struggle with too little support. He, at last, ended the slavish deference of Washington neoliberals to Wall Street, and the consequent grotesque growth in inequality and injustice it has fueled.
what has he done?
Some of the steps he has taken were major but received too little attention, such as the effort (led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen) to create a minimum tax to be paid by corporations worldwide. Some of the bold changes were revealed in policy choices that made headlines—like his decision to place the concerns of the people working in the real economy ahead of the preferences of Wall Street in his American Rescue Plan, his initiative to invest in our infrastructure in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, and his steps to invest in our green economy and combat rising costs for average Americans in the Inflation Reduction Act.
and why this approach?
Biden, Sullivan, Yellen, and their team have finally acknowledged that growth for its own sake—or good performance by markets—are not the only metrics we should have as we make economic policy decisions.
Markets don’t have consciences, neither do they take into consideration the security interests of nations. Companies are by law required to place their bottom line interests ahead of the interests of the rest of society. Therefore, government has an obligation to step in and take steps to ensure that critical social goods are advanced.
Finally, after many decades of deferring to the financial and corporate interests who also happen to be big political donors, a president and his team have come along to say, “enough.” It is time to make economic decisions that serve all the people and address the damage done by the policies of the past.
What can you do?
I’ll be back next week with a more traditional GNR. In the meantime, I am super lucky and proud to be in this with you ✊✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿❤️🧡💛💚✊✊🏻✊🏼✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿