Biden’s agenda should have Dems looking for lifeboats
Not so long ago, President Joe Biden was being talked of as a transformative president, a second Franklin D. Roosevelt in terms of the domestic agenda he would enact.
And there was substance to the claim.
Early in his presidency, Biden had passed a $1.9 trillion stimulus package. While his majorities in both houses of Congress were razor-thin, they proved sufficient to push through a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill.
Clusters of Republicans backed the Biden infrastructure bill. A follow-on $3.5 trillion Build Back Better social spending bill to rival New Deal and Great Society measures has broad support — though not for its sticker price — and, even today, still seems possible.
So, how are Biden and the administration doing with the people who put them into office? According to a stunning Washington Post-ABC News poll this weekend, not well, not well at all.
If the 2022 elections were held this November, registered voters would back Republican candidates over Democratic opponents 51-41.
The GOP voter advantage would translate into a rout of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats, loss of the Senate, two years of gridlock and a lame-duck Biden presidency through 2023 and 2024.
If that Post-ABC poll is accurate, Democrats are staring into the abyss. According to the poll, 70% of Americans have a negative view of the economy under Biden, while 38% believe the economy is in “poor” condition.
“About half of Americans overall and political independents blame Biden for fast-rising inflation,” writes the Post. Seven in 10 independent voters believe Biden’s presidency lacks any real achievements.
On how he is handling his presidency overall, Biden has the approval of 41% and the disapproval of 53% of all Americans.
Biden is 12 points underwater. While he has suffered attrition in his own Democratic Party, it is among independent voters that his losses have been staggering.
Four areas where Biden and the Democrats are on the defensive are: inflation, immigration, crime and education.
In October, the consumer price index was 6.2% above a year ago, the highest surge in inflation in 31 years.
Food and gasoline are showing some of the steepest price increases. Months ago, Democrats were saying the price surge was “transitory.” Few are saying that now. The choked supply chain for commodities looks like it will take a long time to unravel.
As for the border crisis, it is seeing the highest rates of illegal entries in decades, with more than a million having crossed our southern border since Biden took the oath. And they are still coming.
In the aftermath of the “Defund the Police!” protests and riots in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis in 2020, resignations and retirements of cops have gone hand in hand with an explosion of murders and homicides in America’s major cities.
On the education issue, Republicans now seem in step with suburban parents as Democrats appear to be on the side of leftist teachers unions.
The returns from Virginia and New Jersey on Election Day seem to confirm what ABC and the Post found in their poll: A tidal wave may be coming, and if it does not crest and break before November 2022, it will swamp the House and Senate, and it will sink Joe Biden’s White House.
That’s the climate change Democrats ought to be worrying about.