President Biden used to be leery of the term “Bidenomics” and once joked: “I don’t know what the hell that is.”
As the president describes it, his philosophy is built on three pillars: massive public investments, from bridges to broadband; helping workers secure good-paying jobs by boosting unionization and requiring products to be made in the United States; and promoting competition by limiting noncompete agreements, junk fees and prescription drug costs — while vigorously enforcing antitrust laws.
With his approval rating underwater, Mr. Biden is understandably eager to claim credit for low unemployment, real wage growth and the economy’s better-than-expected resiliency. He has a good story to tell about making government work again. He can boast about significant legislative wins from his first two years.
Most Americans, however, perceive the economy to be worse than it is because of stubbornly persistent inflation. This was partially fueled by Mr. Biden unleashing too much spending with his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package during the opening months of his presidency, when the economy was already starting to overheat.
Polls often prod politicians to look for villains to blame as elections approach. Last week, Mr. Biden criticized banks, oil companies, pharmaceutical manufacturers, cryptocurrency traders, hedge fund managers, airlines and hotels. During a recent speech to the AFL-CIO, the president said no one would notice if investment bankers went on strike but that the country would grind to a halt if union members did.
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End of carousel- D.C. Council reverses itself on school resource officers. Good.
- Virginia makes a mistake by pulling out of an election fraud detection group.
- Vietnam sentences another democracy activist.
- Biden has a new border plan.
The D.C. Council voted on Tuesday to stop pulling police officers out of schools, a big win for student safety. Parents and principals overwhelmingly support keeping school resource officers around because they help de-escalate violent situations. D.C. joins a growing number of jurisdictions, from Montgomery County, Md., to Denver, in reversing course after withdrawing officers from school grounds following George Floyd’s murder. Read our recent editorial on why D.C. needs SROs.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) just withdrew Virginia from a data-sharing consortium, ERIC, that made the commonwealth’s elections more secure, following Republicans in seven other states in falling prey to disinformation peddled by election deniers. Former GOP governor Robert F. McDonnell made Virginia a founding member of ERIC in 2012, and until recently conservatives touted the group as a tool to combat voter fraud. D.C. and Maryland plan to remain. Read our recent editorial on ERIC.
In Vietnam, a one-party state, democracy activist Tran Van Bang was sentenced on Friday to eight years in prison and three years probation for writing 39 Facebook posts. The court claimed he had defamed the state in his writings, according to Radio Free Asia. In the past six years, at least 60 bloggers and activists have been sentenced to between 4 and 15 years in prison under the law, Human Rights Watch found. Read more of the Editorial Board’s coverage on autocracy and Vietnam.
The Department of Homeland Security has provided details of a plan to prevent a migrant surge along the southern border. The administration would presumptively deny asylum to migrants who failed to seek it in a third country en route — unless they face “an extreme and imminent threat” of rape, kidnapping, torture or murder. Critics allege that this is akin to an illegal Trump-era policy. In fact, President Biden is acting lawfully in response to what was fast becoming an unmanageable flow at the border. Read our most recent editorial on the U.S. asylum system.
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But, as he sharpens his economic pitch, Mr. Biden should resist the temptation to score political points with populism that is likely to sound inauthentic coming from someone first elected to the Senate 50 years ago, and who represented the most corporate-friendly state in the union.
Mr. Biden says he wants everyone to pay their fair share, but hastens to add that he doesn’t want to tax the well-to-do out of existence. “I’m not talking about the old, old days of 70 percent tax,” he said in Chicago, adding that he wants to build an economy in which “the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do well.”
This president, as most do, yearns to go down in history as transformational. He compares his efforts to finally get every American connected to high-speed internet to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s rural electrification and Dwight D. Eisenhower’s interstate highways. Most Republicans, who disproportionately represent the rural areas reaping the greatest benefits, voted against the legislation that will make universal broadband possible. Yet they now tout the money pouring into their states.
Mr. Biden won in 2020 by promising to be a president for all Americans, and that’s how he’s governing. He’s delivering results for red, blue and purple states. For the health of the nation’s civic culture, this is also how he should campaign.