I listened to the talking heads on the tube comparing Biden’s vision to FDR or LBJ, and I agree.
His various plans, taken together, would be transformative. America as an idea is something Biden understands. He probably grew up, as I did, thinking of this country as “leader of the Free World.”
When people of various nations organized to take back their sovereignty at the end of the epoch of imperialism, the Second World — self-described Communists — would step out in front of the nationalist parade and pretend to have created it.
The First World would react by taking up with whichever scumbags would ID as “anti-Communist.” It was so ugly there were no visible good guys.
I came to be less offended by some of the metaphors, though, when it became clear to me that there was no question which way people would run through any hole in the Iron Curtain. I read the excuses for “false consciousness” but there was nothing to convince me that the way to freedom was to take away freedom.
The First World was not all it claimed but neither was the Second World. China began to challenge Russia (traveling with client states as the Soviet Union) for leadership of the Second World, but the US was the unquestionable leader of the First AKA “Free World,” which made sense only if you understood “Free” as a relative term.
Russia went broke funding its side of the Cold War and we damn near did as we funded both defense and the rebirth of Germany and Japan.
The quality of our national infrastructure has deteriorated a great deal since President Eisenhower swiped the idea for the interstate highway system from Germany. We have fallen behind the nations we defeated in keeping our infrastructure in good repair, and let’s not get started on new generation public facilities. That is obvious if you have a passport and use it.
Worse — -much, much worse — we no longer lead in the opportunities we offer our children. We never had a classless society, but we had more social mobility than most of Europe and Asia.
So it was that we lost our leadership role as Primary Custodian of Dreams. As I write, there is a population of immigrants we call the Dreamers who have been pawns in our corrupt domestic politics all their lives.
We are surrounded by looming catastrophes. Pandemics can destroy nations; climate change can destroy the planet as a suitable habitat for H. saps.
We can shrug and let the world self-destruct, hoping to keep North America safe for our one percent. Most of us — the other 99% — can perish while our elite rides it out in self-contained luxury.
So ends the “American Century,” in the morass of greed and fear where most dreams go to die. The world’s resources are unequally distributed in our favor and our military’s main mission is to enforce that maldistribution.
As our power has declined, the turn to fascism observed in like situations has been delayed. But has it been prevented?
We face a choice, I believe, of building higher fences protected by more guns OR we can try to MAGA. Those people wearing the MAGA hats would claim that it was guns that made us great and fences will allow us to hold what we have. Some of us think it was ideas, even when honored in the breach, that made us great.
Adding up all of Biden’s proposals, you could be looking at value or cost and he still winds up in the company of FDR and LBJ. Plainly, he is seeking to be a transformative president.
Biden inherited from Trump a country even flatter on its back than the one FDR got from Herbert Hoover. Of course, in FDR’s time, John Maynard Keynes was an obscure British professor working in an obscure academic discipline, economics, after having been trained in the more respectable discipline of mathematics. And Keynes did not even put his ideas together for publication until 1936, so the fact that his name came up among FDR’s brain trust was luck or an example of the broad net FDR was casting.
The POTUS who called himself The Donald did not take advice and did not read books without pictures. He always claimed to be an authority on the matter at hand.
FDR raided academia for experts and he followed their suggestions, sometimes stirring the pot one way according to expert A and the other according to expert B AT THE SAME TIME. FDR was the man who might have been the subject of “throw it all against the wall and see what sticks.”
After the world economy was re-structured and re-started and Bretton Woods was more an economic order than a treaty and more a treaty than a place, LBJ had a much clearer playing field in addition to not having to start deep in his own territory.
Keynes would have told LBJ that trying to have guns and butter at the same time could heat up the aggregate demand curve enough for inflation to become a problem. FDR had it easier, and he was able to fool around with fiscal policy and observe the result.
Every POTUS since FDR has been a Keynesian except Ronald Reagan and even the Gipper left a Keynesian lifeline when he attempted to work the supply side rather than the demand side. This was what Bush 41 called “voodoo economics.”
I thought “supply-side” was a neologism for “trickle-down.” My description of trickle-down was “trickle on,” and the change of name did not improve the results.
The Republicans still work the supply side, as when they claim a tax cut for the wealthy will bring in more money to the Treasury, not less.
The Democrats still ride with Keynes and love pointing out that the way to stimulate the economy is to spend money you don’t have. It may sound weird, but the objective is to repair the aggregate demand curve (aggregate=private consumption + government consumption).
A slowed economy is a great time to borrow money, even if the borrowing is from oneself, because interest rates are low. When it picks up, so do tax receipts, and according to the theory you then retire the debt. This has not worked in the US because, presented with a budgetary surplus, Republicans insist on a tax cut rather than debt payment. It was stated in just those terms by Al Gore, and that got us Bush 43 and a tax cut.
Mr. Biden relies on Mr. Keynes when he proposes to spend money we do not have. COVID 19 has laid waste to the aggregate demand curve. But there is no way to get everything he proposes without some increased taxation. However, keeping the national debt in hand would be a cakewalk. It would not even require a complete repeal of the Trump tax cuts.
As Mr. Biden said, we could afford to do all he proposes. Adding up his proposals leaves the anchors wondering if Biden is FDR or LBJ. It would take one or the other or both to get all this spending through Congress.
Biden is not FDR. The voters cleaned House and Senate in response to the Great Depression and FDR had his legislative votes. His problem was the Supreme Court, which I do not anticipate would hobble Biden.
Biden is not LBJ. The votes were there for LBJ, but nothing like FDR’s situation. LBJ’s compensatory advantage was the years he spent in the Senate, his long memory of both favors and slights, and his reputation for balancing the books.
Biden barely has enough votes to allow the Democrats to organize as the majority. He has both a better education and more experience than LBJ
LBJ had a degree from Southwest Texas State Teacher’s College plus one semester at Georgetown Law School; Biden holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware and a law degree from Syracuse.
LBJ served 12 years in the Senate and 3 years as Vice President; Biden served 36 years in the Senate and 8 years as Vice President.
Biden’s reputation is that he’s a somewhat boring nice guy. Nothing like LBJ.
I don’t really have a response to those who say Biden can’t get his program passed beyond there’s only one way to find out. And if he does, he goes down in history as a transformative POTUS.
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Previously Published on Medium
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Gage Skidmore and Shealah Craighead
