GO, JOE, GO!!!

By Edwin Cooney

How long has it been since the American people were encouraged to expect anything useful and even beneficial from the federal government? Forty years ago last January 20th, a jubilant and newly inaugurated president, Ronald Wilson Reagan, asserted during his Inaugural Address: “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem!” President Reagan also insisted that it wasn't his intention to abolish government. He wished to manage the federal government to the advantage of the producers of essential goods and services thus benefiting the American people.

Throughout our history, Hamiltonian Federalists, Jeffersonian Democratic-Republicans, Jacksonian Democrats, Webster and Clay, Whigs, Lincoln Republicans, conservatives, liberals of all sorts, modern Democrats, plus independents, progressives and populists have argued about the sovereignty of the states versus the national government. We even fought a civil war over those differences. However, the bottom line has always been and remains a question of application rather than ideology. The late Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. demonstrated in his book “The Cycles of American History” that every 20 to 40 years, political, social, and economic conditions bring about alterations in national policy that balance off the policies and practices that have dominated political thought and activity over previous years.

President Biden, who represents the center left of the Democratic Party, signed into law last Friday, March 12th a measure regarded by many as equivalent to some of the programs Franklin D. Roosevelt signed in the first hundred days of the first New Deal. (Note: Many assert that the 100 days of the New Deal actually began on Sunday night, March 12th, 1933, when FDR sat before a set of microphones in the East Room of the White House and delivered his first "Fireside Chat" explaining to his anxious constituency his solution to the national banking crisis.) Like FDR back in 1933, President Biden decided to directly finance John and Susie Q. Citizen by advocating and signing "The American Rescue Plan.”

This nearly two trillion dollar plan not only provides relief to individuals making less than $80,000 a year and families making less than $160,000, it finances transportation, small businesses, pays for the manufacture and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, and even expands benefits under the Affordable Care Act, to name just some of its provisions.

The big news is both simple and dramatic. Government that works directly on behalf of the people may well be back, having been out of favor since the days of Lyndon B. Johnson. However, its return is very vulnerable. After all, Democrats have only slim majorities in both houses of Congress. FDR had large majorities in both houses back in 1933. Congress, in the wake of three years of depression, was really out of ideas concerning what to do about it all. In 2021, President Biden must deal with a Congress with slim majorities in both houses. Those minorities have very strong ideas that are quite contrary to those of President Biden. Even more, those minorities are ready to insist that things could be much better off if the president was only willing to consult with them.

Yes indeed, forty years have passed since the American people surrendered to the eloquent siren song of "the great communicator." Joe Biden is as plain as Harry Truman or Jerry Ford and must rely on whatever tricks of the trade he's garnered from 46 years in the United States Senate. Additionally, I'm convinced that he'll benefit for a considerable period of time from the change in both style and temperament from that of his predecessor. Republicans are obviously in no mood to grant "Sleepy Joe" the slightest benefit of any possible doubt.

On the other hand, Mr. Biden will be under pressure from progressive or, if you prefer, liberal Democrats to help them fulfill some of their dreams concerning significant climate change, increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour, and stabilizing the security of first generation immigrants.     .  

Whatever is at the root of President Biden's early success is surprising a lot of people. Writing in the New York Times, Jamelle Bouie suggests that Joe Biden knew he was on to something long before we did. Bouie suggests that what Joe Biden knew better than most political pundits was that a solid majority of Americans were far more interested in getting assistance with their own physical well-being, their financial woes, and our national security than with any president's political theory, ideology, or sense of personal importance.

Finally, it occurs to me that President Donald J. Trump clearly understood how formidable Joe Biden would be were he to receive the Democratic nomination. True, he picked on Elizabeth Warren by calling her “Pocahontas” and took a few jabs at Bernie Sanders, but he really sicced his legal and political pit bulls on Joe Biden!

So, first Sleepy Joe worried him and then Sleepy Joe took him out back of the schoolhouse and beat him!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY