Holding Biden to Account

Being a Democrat means never having to say you’re sorry. More bluntly, being a Democrat means never taking responsibility for the consequences of your policies.

Such is the conclusion one would reasonably draw from some of the political scientists that Thomas Edsall rounded up for his New York Times column on Democratic Party prospects. By Edsall’s lights, it’s beyond the time to panic. It’s time to go into shock.

On the other side, as we have dutifully reported on this blog, some Democrats, led by Lawrence Summers, had warned the Biden administration about the inflation that their policies were likely to produce. Today, we will examine another former Obama administration official, one Steven Rattner, who offers the same warning.

And we will close with some excellent writing from The Economist magazine, on the Biden administration's mismanagement of the immigration crisis. It shows yet another mainstream media outlet being fair and balanced.

So, sometimes politics brings out the best in honorable people. And yet, sometimes political partisans refuse to hold anyone to account.

A Columbia University political scientist, by name of Robert Shapiro, typifies the standard Democratic response to the calamities that are befalling the nation-- by suggesting, through his rhetoric, that the people in charge have no responsibility for what is happening to the country:

Robert Y. Shapiro, a political scientist at Columbia, holds similar views, but suggests that the flood tide of political trouble may be beyond Democratic control:

Biden and the Democrats have had almost all bad news: the pandemic is still going; the economy has not picked up in terms of perceptions of the expected increases in employment and economic growth not on fire; perceptions of what happened in Afghanistan; what has happened on the southern border; high crime rates, all amplified in news reports. It is all perception, and the latest is the increase in inflation and gas prices that people see/feel. The critical race theory controversy and perceptions of Democrats being too woke and extreme. The bad news is overwhelming.

You would think that Joe Biden had nothing to do with any of the bad news. The gods are visiting these terrible things on poor old Joe.

Edsall continues with the words of a political strategist, obviously within the Democratic camp:

Bill McInturff, a founding partner of Public Opinion Strategies, provided me with data from the October WSJ/NBC poll asking voters which party can better manage a wide range of issues. On three key issues — controlling inflation (45R-21D), dealing with crime (43R-21D) and dealing with the economy (45R-27D) — the Republican advantage was the highest in surveys dating back to the 1990s.

Washington Democrats are spending months fighting over legislation … but, during this time, voters tell us prices are soaring, the cost of living is tied for the top issue in the country, and there is a sharp increase in economic pessimism. It is these economic factors that are driving negative impressions about the direction of the country to unusually high levels, and this is hurting Democrats everywhere. No administration is going to thrive in that economic environment.

I trust you have noticed, but nowhere does McInturff suggest that the Democrats who are in charge of the White House and Congress bear any responsibility for the bad news that seems to be rushing at them.

And yet, as I noted, some Democrats are willing to make the connection. The Biden administration owns the current bout of inflation, through its policies and through its ineptitude. The important point about inflation is that you cannot lie your way around it. However much control you and your satraps have over the media, the facts on the ground, the price of eggs and coffee, hit people in the face on a daily basis. It is impossible to message your way out of it.

So, Rattner, another honest man, explains the Biden failures:

How could an administration loaded with savvy political and economic hands have gotten this critical issue so wrong?

One appreciates the rhetorical twist and the irony. Perhaps these savvy hands are not as savvy as they think they are.

Rattner explains:

They can’t say they weren’t warned — notably by Larry Summers, a former Treasury secretary and my former boss in the Obama administration, and less notably by many others, including me. We worried that shoveling an unprecedented amount of spending into an economy already on the road to recovery would mean too much money chasing too few goods.

From my many conversations with administration officials, lawmakers and informed onlookers in recent months, it’s clear to me that the pressure on the White House, particularly from progressives, to move forcefully was intense.

Apparently, the Biden White House, led by a senile old fool, caved to the party’s radical left. When you ask who is in charge, the answer is Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Occasional-Cortex. If that doesn't tell you something, nothing will. I still find it offensive to call such people progressive.

Rattner recommends that the administration takes responsibility for the calamitous consequences of its policies. He is apparently living in a dream world. It will never happen. And yet, for our purposes, credit goes to Rattner for explaining exactly what the Biden people should do.

So the administration should come clean with voters about the impact of its spending plans on inflation. Build Back Better can be deemed “paid for” only if one embraces budget gimmicks, like assuming that some of the most important initiatives will be allowed to expire in just a few years.

Note the ideas-- the BBB plan is riddled with budget gimmicks. Rattner knows it. Too many of his Democratic Party friends are trying to hide the fact:

The result: a package that front-loads spending while tax revenues arrive only over a decade. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the plan would likely add $800 billion or more to the deficit over the next five years, exacerbating inflationary pressures.

It gets worse. That infrastructure bill is not as advertised.

Mr. Biden also insists that the much-lauded infrastructure bill he just signed is fully paid for — but it isn’t. Indeed, the infrastructure figures show $550 billion in new spending and just $173 billion of additional offsets.

As for other media outlets, The Economist magazine has weighed in on the immigration crisis. The magazine has never been an organ of right wing opinion. If anything, it leads slightly left. And yet, having journalistic integrity, it calls out the Biden administration for its immigration policy failures-- you know, the ones that Veep Harris is supposedly in charge of-- in some stirring paragraphs. It’s always a good day when we can share some good writing:

President Joe Biden, who has not visited the southern border since 2008, put a halt to all wall-construction on his first day in office. The wall here ends abruptly, in the middle of a mountain peak. Close by are several long gaps, where floodgates were planned to allow water to flow through during heavy rains. Time ran out, and they were never added. Instead, a few low boulders and a thin string of wire serve as hurdles. At one break, a dozen water bottles are littered on the sandy ground, a sign of migrants’ passage. “See, this is concerning for us,” says Jesus Vasavilbaso, who works for Customs and Border Patrol (CBP). The nearest city is 45 miles away, a four-day walk through desert and mountains, he explains. Being out of water bodes ill for the migrants’ prospects of survival.

Large construction trucks are still parked nearby, as if awaiting direction. Chris Magnus, the police chief in Tucson nominated by Mr Biden to run CBP, has expressed tentative openness to completing “barriers, walls, other things”. Mr Vasavilbaso is hopeful that Mr Magnus could at least persuade the president to finish the gaps in the Tucson area.

Today the gap-riddled wall represents not only Mr Biden’s predecessor but also Mr Biden, who seems to know what he does not want—any more wall—but has yet to come up with a plan that is both “fair and humane”, which is what he promised on the campaign trail. The result is frustration from immigration advocates and people living close to the southern border, as well as a political headache. In the mid-term elections next year Republicans will accuse Democrats of presiding over chaos at the border. Democrats do not yet have an answer to this, in part because they do not realise the criticism has some truth.

The number of illegal border-crossers is the highest for 21 years. The number of “encounters” in the 2021 fiscal year (which ended in September) was the highest on record. (“Encounters” and the number of border-crossers are different, since one person may attempt several crossings.) The perception that Mr Biden is less hostile to migrants than Mr Trump was one factor in the rise, but not the only one. Covid-19 has hit economies to America’s south, adding to the poverty, violence, natural disasters and autocracy which many people are eager to escape. As more migrants arrive at the border it becomes harder to manage them in a consistent way.

Have a nice day!