A Partial Presentation- Joe Biden’s Legacy
Biden’s legacy: a Summary
by Noah Smith – an introduction to Noahpinion
Noahpinion
Joe Biden announced today that he won’t seek reelection for President. We don’t yet know who will replace him, but we know Biden’s tenure in office will soon end. Now is the perfect time to talk about Biden’s legacy as America’s 46th President.
How Presidents are judged by history is a complicated question, and I don’t have much confidence in my ability to predict how the country will remember Joe Biden. But I do have lots of thoughts on how he should be remembered. Basically, I see his policy legacy as a mostly positive one, but I think his political legacy could leave his party in a weaker position going forward.
So I’m going to go through nine major challenges that Biden faced as President and give my assessment of how he handled each one. I’ll start with economic issues and then move on to foreign policy, social policy, and politics.
AB: With that being said, Noah gives Bears a freebie and discusses the Covid and Economic Recovery. It is well stated and a good read. Being retired does not allow me too to spend too much even if I wish to have it on my reading list.
- Covid and the economic recovery
- Manufacturing and industrial policy
- Inflation and deficits
- Afghanistan
- Ukraine
- China
- Immigration and the border
- Crime and social policy
- Party politics and elections
That’s a long list, so let’s get right into it.
Covid and the economic recovery
It’s difficult to remember now, but when Biden took over as President, Covid was still rampaging through the country. Of the approximately 1.2 million Americans who died from the pandemic, more than half died after Biden took over:
The economy was starting to recover, but was still in a fairly deep hole, with the prime-age employment rate at only 76.4% when Biden took over (as opposed to 80.8% now).
It’s hard to remember this now, with the economy humming along and Covid reduced to a chronic annoyance. But when Biden came to power, these were the two big challenges facing the country.
Biden handled the challenge of the pandemic extremely well. Vaccines were developed under Trump, but they were distributed under Biden. In the early days, the U.S.’ vaccination effort was world-beating — we were able to manufacture huge amounts of the world’s best vaccines without a hitch, and roll them out extremely rapidly to anyone who wanted one.
It was only once we reached the limit of the number of people who were willing to take the vaccine that we fell short of other countries’ vaccination rates. And I don’t think there’s any way you can blame Biden for the antivax movement.
Biden was also personally instrumental in moving the country past the pandemic psychologically. There’s no official hard-and-fast definition for when a pandemic ends — some people still get H1N1 flu, AIDS, and other viruses that rampaged many years ago. Although we mostly ignore them now, there are some Covid dead-enders within the progressive movement who would have had us continue social distancing, masking, and other pandemic-era policies indefinitely. It was Biden who stood up and said the words “The pandemic is over”, and took off his mask. It took a Democrat to say those words in a way that most progressives would believe. In a very real sense, that was the moment the pandemic ended.
As for the economic recovery, it’s notable that even without the impact of its higher immigration rates, the U.S. left other advanced countries in the dust since the pandemic:
Source: Ernie Tedeschi
The recovery from the Great Recession took the U.S. nine years. We recovered from the Covid shock in just two.
And unlike the recoveries from the last few recessions, this recovery saw America’s lower-wage workers gain much more than the people at the top of the distribution. And wealth rose across the board, especially for less-educated people, young people, rural people, and minorities:
This is a singular accomplishment. We often take it for granted — just as Americans tend to take every positive development for granted — that the economy would just bounce back during Covid. But if we paid attention to the world beyond our borders, we’d see that most other countries (including China) didn’t bounce back — they’ve taken a long-term hit from the pandemic years, and America hasn’t. .
We don’t know exactly why the U.S. did so uniquely well — with macroeconomics, we never do. Some of the credit has to go to Trump and Congress during the pandemic — the CARES Act provided a uniquely generous cushion of cash that prevented people from being financially ruined in 2020, and in 2021 they came out and spent this cash and boosted the economy back to full employment.
But Biden certainly gets some of the credit too, because his American Rescue Plan was almost as large as the CARES Act. Biden put even more cash into Americans’ pockets, which they also went out and spent. That certainly helped speed the recovery from the pandemic recession even more.
Unfortunately, this also came at a price: government budget deficits and the highest inflation in four decades.
Inflation and deficits
Basic macroeconomic theory says that when the government does a lot of deficit spending and the Fed keeps interest rates low, inflation will rise. That appears to be exactly what happened in the U.S. pandemic recovery. The CARES Act didn’t immediately raise inflation, but it put a lot of cash in Americans’ bank accounts, and when they came out and spent it, that probably pushed prices up. The same is true of Biden’s American Rescue Plan, except that people probably spent the cash right away instead of waiting.
Just how much Biden’s policies were responsible for inflation is an open question that economists debate a lot. A temporary oil and food price shock in 2022, from the start of the Ukraine war, also contributed, as did the snarling of supply chains in the pandemic. Whether the ARP’s effect on inflation was an acceptable price to pay for the ARP’s additional boost to the U.S.’ economic recovery will always be an open question. But I think it’s safe to say that this is an ambiguous aspect of Biden’s legacy, especially since inflation is one of the reasons voters might toss the Democrats out of power now.
I am still shocked by vaccination mandates
@paddy,
Why? It’s an American tradition that goes back to Washington (innoculation mandates). Schools all over the country have had vaccine mandates for decades. These are the mandatory vaccinations that all service members are required to receive before initial entry or basic training:
Adenovirus
Hepatitis A
Hepatitis B
Influenza
Measles, mumps, rubella
Meningococcal
Poliovirus
Tetanus-Diphtheria
Varicella
If you’re shocked, you just haven’t been paying attention.
I took the vaxxes spec’ed to go “overseas” in 1972. I suppose I could have declined and been a CO on body autonomy.
They were all old vaxxes used since Walter Reed. I was out by the time they experimented with Anthrax vaxx. That was not well accepted.
I continue to question the reason to mandate covid shots based on trials not consistent with approving medications. In my case given my age and health I have not and will not take any new covid, bird flu, or flu vax.
School mandates and military orders need vetting to overrule individual rights to body autonomy
Or do you think pro abortion should lose the autonomy argument?
@paddy,
“I continue to question the reason to mandate covid shots based on trials not consistent with approving medications.” The FDA approved the COVID vaccine consistent with vaccine approval protocols. Vaccines are not medications.
Given my age and my understanding of these vaccines, I have gladly been vaccinated six times for COVID, as well as getting the shingles and pneumovax shots.
Your silly attempt to misdirect with abortion (“pro-abortion” gives away your bias) doesn’t fool me. Nobody is required to enlist in the military. Anyone who objects to school vaccine requirements can home-school without penalty. Criminalizing abortion is not the same thing and you know it.
Consistency is not silly.
If one cannot control all aspects of their body…
@paddy,
Except it isn’t consistent. You *can* legally choose not to get vaccinated, and public schools can choose not to admit you if you’re not. You *can* legally choose not to get vaccinated, but the US military can choose not to hire you if you’re not.
In some states, you *cannot* legally choose to get an abortion. Can you spot the difference?
Pretending that voluntarily foregoing public school education or military service is comparable to forced birth is, to put it gently, silly.
There are many ways in which we cannot control all aspects of our bodies. For example, we cannot legally inject ourselves with heroin. I’m sure you can think of others.
Re: “I continue to question the reason to mandate covid shots based on trials not consistent with approving medications.”
Huh? The FDA may have expedited their review, but it was SOP. They just pushed the COVID vaccine to the top of the approval queue. The big complaint at the time was that the FDA was dragging its feet by insisting on a proper Phase III trial. Everything was posted online. I’ve followed a few drug trials over the years, and it was a bog standard trial. I follow a few experts on pharmaceuticals, and they had no problems with the approval process.
Where do people come up with this stuff?
As for abortion, it isn’t contagious.
paddy [also to Kaleberg on where people come up with this stuff]
i agree with you, but joel has modified or clarified his position since he first wrote on this subject. your “consistency” is not silly if you are talking about bodily autonomy. previously it sounded to me like joel was contemptuous of people demanding we respect their bodily autonomy. but I agree with him, joel, to the extent that people also have a right to exclude you from close contact with them if you have not been vaccinated.
as for abortion, the only argument i can hold on to is that the government, that is “we,” have no right to invade the privacy of others. “we” of course, confer “rights” on each other, ourselves, so it requires care, and common sense, to parse out what “rights” we need to observe for our own safety..from each other.
there is no “one rule” or “logic” or “consistency” that can do this for us. it depends on at least a majority of us being morally mature and sensible enough to find ways we can all live with.
I think in hindsight that the Biden legacy will be the full throated attempt to stifle the Chinese tech industry. Gina Raimondo has been relentless in pressing both American and foreign companies to stop selling and servicing the Chinese tech sector. As a corollary, Biden actually used the concept of industrial policy to stimulate the American tech sector, mainly through the Chip Act. Biden was also able to pass a good sized infrastructure package when Democrats still controlled the House.
Biden’s judicial picks have been very good, he has pushed through over 200 federal judges, including Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.
On foreign policy, in my opinion, he has been disappointing. I believe he should have rejoined the Iran nuclear deal on day one of his term. I think the US pushed the Ukraine invasion by the continued NATO threat to Russia, an existential threat to them. We could have used the Minsk accords instead of provoking the Russian invasion. Biden has also been very weak on the Gaza War, now approaching 40,000 dead Palestinians. He should have made US military aid completely dependent on safeguarding civilians from aerial bombing campaigns.
My sense is that Biden will be seen historically as a decent President who handled the job well and left at the right time. I wish he had announced two years ago that he wasn’t running for re-election, which would have brought out all the top tier Democrats to consider running.
Jim Han
an honest opinion passing a kind of first order “colorable” test. but
“stifle” may not be a fair characterization. i do not know Biden’s motivation, but it is reasonable for a country to protect itself from competition, or “unfair” competition. and to take care that it’s own economic interests..including developing self sufficiency in critical manufacturing. i don’t know if Chinese competition has been unfair or not, but this is something that should be able to be worked out without brink-of-war threats.
i am not sure Iran wanted to continue with the “Iran deal.”
“the US pushed he Ukraine invasion” is nonsense. like Poland attacked Germany in 1939 provoking the German invasion of Poland. NATO had plenty of time to be a “threat to Russia,” if it was going to be one, since 1989 if not since 1945.
as for Gaza….are you suggesting that Israel should put up with repeated killing of its people and genocidal claims by Arabs against Israel…without reacting the way countries that are attacked have always reacted since humans began living in groups to protect themselves from attacks by other groups. Or that America has no concerns in the middle east that preclude it from abandoning it’s only reliable ally in the area? I won’t pretend to defend my claims to be a humanitarian, but there is a point where knee jerk pacifism becomes the road to suicide. [and yes, this sounds a lot like what was said against anti-war protesters of Vietnam war. I think the situations are distinguishable.
as for Biden announcing two years ago…. does it occur to you his “condition” may have worsened over those two years, and that he was able to accomplish things over those two years that even you seem to admire?
there are no “top tier” Democrats. there are only ambitious politicians who may turn out to be decent Presidents if they can get themselves elected, but there are no guarantees.