The huge challenge awaiting President-elect Joe Biden
When Barack Obamawas elected president in 2008, TheOnion, a satirical newspaper, had this headline: “Black man given nation’sworst job.”
Joe Biden, whose election victory came Saturday after three days of uncertainty, knewwhat hewas getting into when he decided to try to unseat DonaldTrump. But Obama is probably telling his vice president, “Dude, I had it easy compared to you.”
Obama had towork to pull the economy out of a serious recession brought on by a financial crisis. Biden also will take over a battered economy. Unemployment stands at 6.9%, with more than 12 million people out ofwork.
But he’ll have to confront an even graver problem: a relentless pandemic that has killed at least 235,000 people in this country. As yet, there is no cure; there is no vaccine; andwe are nowhere near achieving herd immunity.
Infections, hospitalizations and deaths are all on the rise. On Thursday alone, 1,108 people died of the disease — the equivalent of three jumbo jets crashing. It’s an immense catastrophe that is still unfolding.
Life has been disrupted on a scale not seen sinceWorldWar II. Many restaurants have closed, temporarily or permanently, and in-person classes have been suspended for most public school students. City downtownareas have been desolated as millions of Americanswork fromhome. Restrictions that had been lifted have been restored in some places, portending more economic damage.
Many industries that usually rebound when the economy recovers may stay depressed for years— including airlines, hotels, tourism, oil and gas and commercial real estate.
Worse, every effort to contain the epidemic has been subverted by the personwho should be doing the most to help: the incumbent president. He has encouraged his followers to resist measures recommended by public health experts, and many of them have done so. Their noncompliance will outlive his presidency.
TheTrump administration brings to mind the Buchanans in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The GreatGatsby”: “They were careless people, TomandDaisy— they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever itwas that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” Cleaning up will be the task of the next administration.
Biden might like to emulate Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, who entered the WhiteHouse during the Great Depression and embarked on an ambitious effort to rescue Americans from hardship, keep banks functioning, create jobs, boost farm income and revive the economy. He signed 15 major bills in his first hundred days. The resultwas a monumental reshaping of the federal government’smission.
But it came about only because Roosevelt had aCongress heavily dominated by his party. In seeking legislation, hewas pushing an open door. Many of the measures FDR signed originated not in theWhite House but on Capitol Hill.
Biden, however, willmost likely have towork with a Senate controlled by Republicans, who have rarely showed a willingness towork with Democrats on compromise solutions. Not a single Republican senator voted for Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and only three voted for his 2009 stimulus package. And let’s not even talk aboutMerrick Garland.
It’s not likely the Senate will give Biden what hewould request in the way of federal stimulus and relief. SenateMajority Leader MitchMcConnell has said thatCongress should pass a “rescue package” before the end of the year, but it would undoubtedly fallwell short of what Democrats— and, once passed, itwould giveMcConnell a pretext to say nothingmore would be needed next year.
Biden thinks he can persuade some Republicans to cooperate, but recent history suggests it will be a tough sell. GOPlawmakers will have the luxury of balking at Biden’s proposals and then faulting him for the problems they refused to ameliorate. Expect them to suddenly rediscover the aversion to budget deficits and big spending that they somehowlost as the federal debt soared underTrump.
There are many types of job stress, but one of theworst is having important responsibilitieswithout adequate authority. Scientific research, according to the American Institute of Stress, finds “thatworkers who perceive they are subjected to high demands but have little control are at increased risk for cardiovascular disease.”
It’s not easy to put out the fires of hell. Biden will be expected to do it with a bucket ofwater.