After reading a few days worth of carping about Joe Biden’s performance, I decided enough’s enough and responded at New York:
Joe Biden has been president of the United States for 43 days. He inherited power from a predecessor who was trying to overturn the 2020 election results via insurrection just two weeks before Inaugural Day, and whose appointees refused the kind of routine transition cooperation other administrations took for granted. His party has a four-vote margin of control in the House, and only controls the Senate via the vice presidential tie-breaking vote (along with a power-sharing arrangement with Republicans). Democratic control of the Senate was not assured until the wee hours of January 6 when the results of the Georgia runoff were clear. Biden took office in the midst of a COVID-19 winter surge, a national crisis over vaccine distribution, and flagging economic indicators.
Biden named all his major appointees well before taking office, and as recommended by every expert, pushed for early confirmation of his national security team, which he quickly secured. After some preliminary discussions with Republicans that demonstrated no real possibility of GOP support for anything like the emergency $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief and stimulus package he had promised, and noting the votes weren’t there in the Senate for significant filibuster reform, Biden took the only avenue open to him. He instructed his congressional allies to pursue the budget reconciliation vehicle to enact his COVID package, with the goal of enacting it by mid-March, when federal supplemental unemployment insurance would run out. Going the reconciliation route meant exposing the package to scrutiny by the Senate parliamentarian, It also virtually guaranteed total opposition from congressional Republicans, which in turn meant Senate Democratic unanimity would be essential.
The House passed the massive and complex reconciliation bill on February 27, right on schedule, with just two Democratic defections, around the same time as the Senate parliamentarian, to no one’s great surprise, deemed a $15 minimum wage provision (already opposed by two Senate Democrats) out of bounds for reconciliation. The Senate is moving ahead with a modified reconciliation bill, and the confirmation of Biden’s Cabinet is chugging ahead slowly but steadily. Like every recent president, he’s had to withdraw at least one nominee – in his case Neera Tanden for the Office of Management and Budget, though the administration’s pick for deputy OMB director is winning bipartisan praise and may be substituted smoothly for Tanden.
Add in his efforts to goose vaccine distribution — which has more than doubled since he took office — and any fair assessment of Biden’s first 43 days should be very positive. But the man is currently being beset by criticism from multiple directions. Republicans, of course, have united in denouncing Biden’s refusal to surrender his agenda in order to secure bipartisan “unity” as a sign that he’s indeed the radical socialist – or perhaps the stooge of radical socialists – that Donald Trump always said he was. Progressives are incensed by what happened on the minimum wage, though it was very predictable. And media critics are treating his confirmation record as a rolling disaster rather than a mild annoyance, given the context of a federal executive branch that was all but running itself for much of the last four years.
To be clear, I found fault with Biden’s presidential candidacy early and often. I didn’t vote for him in California’s 2020 primary. I worried a lot about Biden’s fetish for bipartisanship. I support a $15 minimum wage, and as a former Senate employee, have minimal respect for the upper chamber’s self-important traditions. But c’mon: what, specifically, is the alternative path he could have pursued the last 43 days? Republican criticism is not worthy of any serious attention: the GOP is playing the same old tapes it recorded in 2009 when Barack Obama (and his sidekick Biden) spent far too much time chasing Republican senators around Washington in search of compromises they never intended to make. While they are entitled to oppose Biden’s agenda, they are not entitled to kill it.
Progressive criticism of Biden feels formulaic. Years and years of investment in the rhetoric of the eternal “fight” and the belief that outrage shapes outcomes in politics and government have led to the habit of seeing anything other than total subscription to the left’s views as a sell-out. Yes, Kamala Harris could theoretically overrule the Senate parliamentarian on the minimum wage issue, but to what end? So long as Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema oppose the $15 minimum wage, any Harris power play could easily be countered by a successful Republican amendment to strike the language in question, and perhaps other items as well. And if the idea is to play chicken with dissident Democrats over the fate of the entire reconciliation bill, is a $15 minimum wage really worth risking a $1.9 trillion package absolutely stuffed with subsidies for struggling low-income Americans? Are Fight for 15 hardliners perhaps conflating ends and means here?
Media carping about Biden’s legislative record so far is frankly just ridiculous. Presumably writing about the obscure and complicated details of reconciliation bills is hard and unexciting work that readers may find uninteresting, while treating Tanden’s travails as an existential crisis for the Biden administration provides drama, but isn’t at all true. The reality is that Biden’s Cabinet nominees are rolling through the Senate with strong confirmation votes (all but one received at least 64 votes), despite a steadily more partisan atmosphere for confirmations in recent presidencies. The COVID-19 bill is actually getting through Congress at a breakneck pace despite its unprecedented size and complexity. Trump’s first reconciliation bill (which was principally aimed at repealing Obamacare) didn’t pass the House until May 4, 2017, and never got through the Senate. Yes, Obama got a stimulus bill through Congress in February 2009, but it was less than half the size, much simpler, and more to the point, there were 59 Senate Democrats in office when it passed, which meant he didn’t even have to use reconciliation.
There’s really no exact precedent for Biden’s situation, particularly given the atmosphere of partisanship in Washington and the whole country right now, and the narrow window he and his party possess – in terms of political capital and time – to get important things done. He should not be judged on any one legislative provision or any one Cabinet nomination. So far the wins far outweigh the losses and omissions. Give the 46th president a break.
This article was frustrating, in part because it ignores an important solution in one regard and perpetuates a myth in another.
It is true that large numbers or workers will tend to depress wages. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the government to set a floor in terms of wages and working conditions for all applicants to avoid businesses using the most exploitable labor. The various campaigns for an increased minimum wage are encouraging. Interestingly, the push to eliminate or alter tipped wages may even be more effective because immigrants are so heavily concentrated in that sector. Bring up working standards and wages will make these jobs more attractive to white and black workers and will help the Latino and Asian people working there now.
The issue of benefits needs more explanation to the general public. Illegal immigrants are NOT eligible for most Federal and state programs and this needs to be repeated as often as the truth that they are not even allowed to vote. Just like the renewed discussion of what an increase in the marginal tax really means, progressive need to counter the falsehoods that right wing and even centrist sources state. Why are there all these people speaking Spanish in line to receive Medicaid? It’s most likely because they are citizens. There are a few limited exceptions but I am waiting for compelling evidence that this loopholes are huge or there is fraud. From a federal government website message from 2014: “No federal funding to cover undocumented immigrants, except for payment for limited emergency services.” https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/outreach-and-enrollment/downloads/overview-of-eligibility-for-non-citizens-in-medicaid-and-chip.pdf
I do believe there is a limit to the overall level of immigration but I don’t think we have reached it if we are concerning about having enough workers to support the future economy as the article mentions. The ultimate lose-lose situation (which of course is a libertarian/Republican dream) is many workers with no benefits. Given that immigration from Mexico is down, lets focus on the later.
On the better benefits and salaries issue
1. Better salaries and benefits would increase the difference between wages in the US and other countries, thereby making it even more attractive. This is called the pull factor in immigration.
2. Labor laws in the US are poorly enforced, with workplace inspections in particular being very infrequent. This is why the article calls for enforcing labor laws against employers.
3. Levels of immigration are related to working conditions in the US and to enforcement of immigration laws. It may be true that current levels of immigration are low, but that doesn’t mean they will remain low forever. Conflicts in other countries are increasing and the number of potential immigrants is very high.
On the issue of the strain of immigration on public finances
1. This is probably the aspect that most liberals misunderstand and most pundit misrepresent. The working class understand how the strain works because they use public services more.
2. Immigrants may not be eligible to all public programs, but they are eligible to a substantial proportion either directly or indirectly.
3. Asylum seekers do receive some public benefits (including during the period their applicants are pending -which can take a lot of time and a very high proportion of which are rejected-).
4. More important the children of immigrants receive a lot of public benefits, whether documented or undocumented (eg public education). Ordinary people don’t make a distinction between documented immigrants and their undocumented or native born children. Native born children though have access to many programs that benefit their parents (ie their parents administer the money that their children receive).
5. Undocumented immigrants have indirect access to benefits for example via the use of hospital emergency rooms which are prohibited from turning away people.
6. Another example is jails/prisons, regardless of whether immigrants commit more crimes or not. And of course detention centers and supervision of absconding.
Most cost/benefit analysis for immigration don’t take into account the costs of native born children. The US is in this respect different to Europe where many countries don’t have soil citizenship.
I will agree with you that enforcement of existing labor laws is crucial. In fact, some of the campaigns against tipped wages stems from the fact enforcement of a minimum wage (if tips fall below that level) has not been sufficient in the service industry.
I don’t think increased wages and benefits will create much more of a pull because the rap against immigrants is that they settle for lower wages and thereby hurt all wage earners.
Finally, you seem to be saying that the issue of benefits really comes down to emergency services. Sorry, I am not in favor of banning people from ER rooms or schools. Putting aside all moral arguments, the latter will help create a permanent precariat class which is not in anyone’s interest. In fact, that is probably why Europe has more social tensions over immigration that the US.
Where the working class has succeeded in the past to improve things for themselves are the times they were able to mute ethnic, racial, and other differences (eg. skilled vs. unskilled). Pandering to resentments against others in the same economic boat or worse is not really a viable option. Yes, we have increased border security over the years (and probably a good thing) but that has not nipped xenophobia in the bud. Making sure there is a floor native and foreign born won’t fall through is a better answer all the way around.
That is the whole point of the article, which I don’t dispute.
The fact that the proportion of the foreign born is near an all time can’t be ignored. It has positive consequences electorally, but in policy terms it is more complicated.
I also agree that this is why Democrats must take both social and economic aspects equally seriously.
Let’s see what the House produces, if anything.
Shorter version: scapegoating immigrants is not fair or helpful.
My apologies for all the typos.
Why are “undocumented” immigrants undocumented? Because they are illegal immigrants. Speaking of their illegal conduct in euphemisms like “undocumented” or “unauthorized”, or ignoring the difference between legal immigrants and illegal ones, merely convinces the hearer that the speaker wants to evade the issue. If the Democrats want to speak credibly on this issue, the first thing they must do is abandon the doubletalk.