Biden needs to provide a Decency Agenda

The New York Times has strongly suggested that next president Joe Biden should promote a Decency Agenda in order to rally Americans all across the land.

The Washington, D.C. politics is rancid from too many highly partisan arguments that now should be dropped into the mud and replaced with all-American values that were available in the past.

There is a pressing need to turn down the temperature of the culture wars and promote a policy agenda with broad public support, returning to constitutional norms that served the nation for many years.

The effort can target the usual bipartisan suspects, like shoring up infrastructure and lowering the price of prescription drugs, but can also reach further afield, guided in part by the imperative of the pandemic.

Government leaders are often encouraged by opinion writers to try to find common ground between the nation’s two major political parties. But the trend is for one party to take a firm stand in promoting its platform and the other to stand firmly against the concept.

What we need is a meeting of the minds or a change of heart by

one or the other group.

Climate change is another arguing point. A survey this spring by the Pew Research Center found that 65% of American adults think the federal government is not doing enough to reduce the effects of climate change.

Many Republican legislators haven’t caught up with their constituents’ evolving view and still present the issue as a death match between the environment and the economy.

If climate change measures are put into place, the economy is much more likely to thrive, Democrats say.

However, promoting climate-resilient agriculture already seems to have cross-aisle appeal.

Although politicians claim that they are looking for common ground, they often complain that the landscape has been taken over by low-cost housing.

We should learn from the pandemic that we may have another in our lifetime, so if we ever can gain control of the present hellish situation we should be able to better prepare for a future global catastrophe.

Joe Biden as the new president knows from his decades in government that he and American voters will need to make clear their expectations for action and bring the necessary pressures to bear.

Actually, there is common ground to be found in a host of policy areas. Political leaders should be profoundly pressed to cultivate those opportunities.