I can't believe I'm defending Biden this much as of late, but there you go. It's happening, I guess. I guess I'm kind of on a high after reading the chapter of "It's okay to be angry about capitalism" on build back better, but then I see the populist online left crap on him relentlessly. And normally, I'd be all for that. He kinda has it coming a lot of the time. BUT...I feel like sometimes the criticisms get out of hand.
Today, Kyle Kulinski talked about how people can't cite any reasons to be pro Biden. And he himself kinda crapped on Biden, admitted he ended the war in Afghanistan, which, btw, was kind of a big deal, but honestly, to say there's NO reason to be for him? That's disingenuous. I can cite several decent things about Biden's platform. I mean, for the record, let's start with my "big 4". UBI, Medicare for all, free college/student debt forgiveness, climate change.
On UBI, he had the child tax credit, which was like UBI lite for kids. Given my own UBI proposal, it was a very mild, incremental joke compared to a full UBI, but it cut child poverty in half when it was implemented. Out of 100 possible points, let's give him 10/100. Because let's face it, the child UBI is 1/4 of my total UBI in terms of persons, and I support $5400 per child, rather than $3600. So 2/3 of 1/4 is basically 2/12, or 1/6. And then consider that the adult UBI wouldn't exist at all, and that is a lot more valuable in terms of dollars, and yeah, 10/100 sounds about right.
On medicare for all, he supported a public option with universal opt in in theory, but he hasn't done crap to advance it. So...yeah. Let's just say it, he's been a complete failure in practice, and he deserves 0 points. But he DID support some sort of public option in theory. 0/50.
Free college and student debt forgiveness. He actually did $10-20k in student debt forgiveness by executive order. That's bad###. He just said, I'm doing it, and then...the courts stopped him. Because republicans filed lawsuits to get it shot down and the courts took it up and blah blah blah obstruct obstruct obstruct. And on free college, he wanted free community college. All things considered, half measures, but yeah, it's something. Let's say 13/25.
Build back better. I mean, if I were president, I'd be happy to sign on to the build back better framework for climate change. I don't want a full green new deal, as that is a completely different vision that contradicts with my UBI in terms of funding and dollars. But yeah solid plan. 25/25.
So just based on that, he gets a 48/200. That's not great. But it's something. And if he had a public option, that would go up to the 60-70 I gave him in the past depending on the implementation.
And then there was the $15 minimum wage he wanted but congress shot it down.
And then the paid family leave, the free preK, universal childcare, etc.
I mean, let's be honest. You can CLEARLY tell I'm not really on team Biden here. I've discussed all of this before and I've lambasted it for being milquetoast, but...it's something. We were getting some progress. Bernie DID push him to the left a bit, and most dems were willing to play ball. And let's face it, who stopped us from getting all of these nice things? The courts and congress. Biden is only one guy, and even if we had Marianne, or Bernie, or Yang in office, you wanna know where we'd be? In the same situation. Because the problem isn't the president, the problem is congress and the courts. Let's lay the blame where it belongs. Seriously, Bernie discussed all of this in his book. I didn't do a full review on it as I wanna wait until I finished it, but yeah.
I mean, I'm not passionate about Biden either, but it's insane to act like he didn't try to do ANYTHING. I get being frustrated with the dems in general, and to be frank, they deserve it, but let's not be disingenuous here. It's fine to not like Biden, it's fine to not be passionate about the guy, but let's at least admit he wanted to do some nice things here and there.
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