By Todd Lassa
Certainly, the social distancing in deference to the coronavirus pandemic, which cut the usual audience of lawmakers, justices, pols and pundits to about 200 from 1,600 had something to do with the reasonably warm reception President Biden received at his first joint session of Congress. There were plenty of cheers, from the point at the beginning of the address when Biden called out the historic moment in which the President of the United States was accompanied by two women; Vice President Harris and House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“Madame Speaker. Madame Vice President. No president has ever said those words,” Joseph R. Biden said at the outset, “and it’s about time.”
President Biden’s address was his chance to lobby Republicans, as one should expect from a leader from the other party, in the House and – especially – the Senate to push an agenda that ranges from an FDR-style set of spending programs to a federal voter rights bill named for the late civil rights activist and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-GA. Senate Republicans remain locked in place of course, with moderate Mitt Romney of Utah appearing stoic as Biden laid out his American Jobs Act and American Families Act, two proposed bills that would cost $3.3 trillion, plus another $800 billion in extended tax credits.
Romney’s reaction – or lack thereof, difficult to read under his face mask – doesn’t matter for now, because if Republican senators won’t budge, public support for Biden’s agenda is much more enthusiastic from both Republican and Democratic voters, according to the latest polls.
Biden drew upon his naturally empathetic nature, tempering his voice and extending credit for the nation’s rights and responsibilities to “we,” the people who make up the citizenship, in stark contrast to the previous president’s obsession with “I.”
The Biden agenda’s goal to reverse the effects of Republican philosophy goes back well beyond the past four years of President Trump to Ronald Reagan. As we’ve noted here in the past, Biden’s embrace of Keynesian/big government/FDR-style economic dogma targets the core of every Republican, from moderates to MAGA-hatters, to predict the steepness of the uphill battle he faces in returning “unity” to Washington.
His salient statement on the subject was: “Trickle-down economics has never worked. It’s time to grow the economy from the middle-out.”
The two key safety-net items in the American Families Act:
•Free, “high-quality” pre-school for 3- and 4-year-olds, plus two years of free tuition at community colleges, because “12 years” of free public education “no longer is enough today to compete. … Any country that out-educates us, out-competes us.”
•Extension of the Child Tax Credit from Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, to $3,000 for children over age 6, and $3,600 for those younger than 6, which the president says will cut child poverty in half.
Biden reiterated his promise not to raise taxes for people making less than $400,000, and called for closing corporate tax loopholes, including the use of tax havens. The Families Plan would kick up the top tax bracket for the wealthiest 1% – those making $400,000 or more a year – back up to 39.6%, “where it was when George W. Bush became president,” and would kill capital gains tax loopholes.
Biden called for immigration reform he says Republicans and Democrats alike favor and, in a MAGA-esque moment, suggested that tough negotiations with the Chinese government over trade policies continue, and “there’s no reason that blades for a wind turbine can’t be made in Pittsburgh instead of Beijing.”
As the rest of Americans get their COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. will “become the arsenal for other countries,” Biden said. He called for bipartisan consensus on police reform bills, called on Congress to pass the Equality Act to project LGBTQ Americans, reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, reinstate universal background checks and the assault rifle ban (“What do you think deer are wearing … Kevlar vests?” he ad-libbed) and pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
[Scroll through The Hustings’ home page to read debates on voting rights and suppression, and the Second Amendment.]
The Republican response, by Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, painted Biden’s agenda as a quixotic list of heady goals that a dysfunctional Senate simply will not touch between now and the mid-term elections.