Editor’s Note: For another viewpoint, see Point: The Biden Economy Will Crush Democrats in 2022.
A lot of folks aren’t feeling so privileged these days. Maybe they could have it worse, but they know they could have it a whole lot better. That’s become a weathered narrative, playing in mainstream media every day. Overlooked voters are working harder than their parents did with less to show for it. Good paying jobs are just what you see on The Bachelorette, in a pretend universe that doesn’t represent “real” America. It’s billionaires who get headlines, not people working full-time for $28,000 a year.
Time to end the narrative. It isn’t true, and it just makes it easier for Republicans, who fail to deliver, to encourage resentment by telling falsehoods about Democratic policy. How do we know it isn’t true? Because there’s a Democrat making it very plain, with everything he says and does, that he hasn’t forgotten those folks. He grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in a country very different from the one he now leads, and he understands how a lot of folks aren’t feeling so privileged. It’s President Joe Biden who, in just his first year in office, has delivered more for working people than any administration has in over 50 years.
If what you want from the president is a roaring economy, this one has delivered and then some. The numbers are dazzling and too many to list in their entirety, so just take a quick look:
- unemployment dropped from 6.3 percent to 4.2 percent, with 6 million jobs added
- GDP growth best since 1984
- 99 percent of schools are open, up from 46 percent this time last year
- holiday sales rose 10.7 percent above pre-pandemic levels, the fastest increase in 17 years
- shelves stocked at 90 percent (pre-pandemic, 91%)
- gas prices down 25 cents a gallon in many places
It’s a list of achievements unimaginable a year ago. It’s so comprehensive, where hasn’t he delivered?
But he hasn’t passed Build Back Better (BBB), the bill supported by the majority of Americans. BBB would provide support for long-term care, expand Medicare to include hearing aids, provide investments in housing, clean energy, and clean energy jobs, increase affordable childcare and provide universal pre-K, and support working families by lowering the cost of healthcare and higher education, and by expanding the child tax credit.
It hasn’t passed because, to put it bluntly, Republicans in the United States Senate don’t want working families to have nice things. If they did, this bill would already have been signed into law. But Republicans in the United States Senate don’t mind if people with hearing loss aren’t able to afford hearing aids. It’s okay with them that children are denied pre-K, which increases graduation rates and future earnings. They will not lift a finger to help working families who pay too much for childcare, or stop working families from going under when an older family member needs long-term care. They don’t want working families to have greater access to affordable housing or the benefits of home ownership.
But instead of talking about how Republicans are doing everything they can to stop Biden from passing legislation Americans want and need, we just keep that weathered, worn-out narrative going about how Democrats are neglecting working people, and how Biden isn’t getting BBB passage. And we keep trying to get into West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s psyche as if that will unlock the key to his resistance.
Folks, the fault lies not within our president, but within our Congress.
While it sometimes seems Manchin acts the way he does simply to stay in the spotlight, it does keep Republicans in the shadows. If you don’t want to face who Republicans in Congress are as people, their real character, and their utter and disgraceful failure to pass legislation in the best interests of the American people, I doubt anyone can persuade you to embrace Biden’s astonishing record of first-year accomplishments. But don’t pretend the problem is Biden.
He’s the best first-year president of our time, and what he has done was unimaginable a year ago. Way to go, Joe.
