How Biden can prove that government works
WASDINBTON >> President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris confront a multitude of crises, problems, difficulties and dilemmas. Yet even now that the inaugural ceremonies are history and the glow of the grand-finale fireworks has faded — even in the cold light of a midwinter’s day — this is a moment for optimism. For the new administration, and for our traumatized nation, there is a way forward. These profound challenges also present rare, and bipartisan, opportunities.
Our elected leaders need to provide policy solutions and accountability — meaning criminal investigations and, yes, impeachment — at the same time. One without the other will be insufficient. Done together, the healing effects of both will be mutually reinforcing.
The first big task for the Biden team is to gain control of the covid-19 pandemic, which is killing, on average, more than 3,000 Americans each day. The new administration inherits two highly effective vaccines, with more on the way, but must develop and implement a plan to deliver and administer them.
State and local governments are doing the best they can, but some are foundering. Many jurisdictions say they simply need more vaccine doses; others need bigger facilities or more medical personnel to administer the shots. Thousands of doses were even allowed to spoil and had to be thrown away, which is tragic and unacceptable.
Even so, Biden’s promise of 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days is within reach. Setting an even more ambitious goal would help the country get ahead of mutations in the coronavirus that are making covid-19 more transmissible. Success would send a powerful message about how big government, in competent and experienced hands, can do great and necessary things.
The next priority must be Biden’s proposed $1.9 trillion covid-19 relief and stimulus package.
For this, he needs Congress, with a 50-50 Senate and only a slim Democratic majority in the House. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-calif., will be setting the agenda in their respective chambers, but Republicans can be obstructionists if they want to. They might greet Biden with the same massive resistance they showed toward Barack Obama.
But they might not. Some Republicans in both the Senate and the House are on record as favoring elements of Biden’s plan, such as the additional $1,400 payments to individuals. And here is where accountability comes in: Moving ahead with former president Donald Trump’s impeachment is not only the right thing to do constitutionally, but in my view the best course politically as well.
Some Republicans essentially want to say “never mind,” claiming that impeachment would impede national unity. But Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell, R-KY., isn’t shying away from judgment, saying Trump clearly “provoked” the mob that sacked the Capitol. He knows that every member of Congress, as well as former Vice President Mike Pence, were in mortal danger. And he seems to be hopping mad about it.
A trial will force the nation to look at Trump, now disgraced and stripped of official power, as he really is: a wouldbe autocrat who tried to cling to power by force. It will keep the spotlight on Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who sought political advantage by echoing Trump’s electionfraud nonsense. It will help finally put an end to the lie that the election was somehow “rigged” — and also to the new lie embraced by some Trump supporters that it was really left-wing provocateurs who invaded the Capitol.
And the proceeding will give establishment Republicans such as Mcconnell the chance to shift the party’s direction by firmly rejecting Trumpist conspiracy theories about the election — which, not coincidentally, is what many of the party’s biggest corporate donors want.
Maybe Biden doesn’t get the full $1.9 trillion — but does get enough to provide meaningful relief. Maybe congressional Democrats don’t get all the penalties they want for Trump — but they, and Republicans, do get some sort of clear break with his hold on the GOP.
I haven’t gone completely starry-eyed. I don’t see many Republicans flocking to embrace Biden’s call to give 11 million undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, for example. And I know Trump will find some way to make noise.
But I believe those who see continued political gridlock and cultural trench warfare as our inevitable fate are wrong.