Current Events > The positive case for Joe Biden

(+) Yeah! (+)

Biden made industrial policy a reality
Throughout my entire life, Ive heard Americans talk about the need to revive American manufacturing. First the Rust Belt and then the China Shock hollowed out the manufacturing workforce employment plunged, and output stagnated. And yet neither Bush nor Obama seemed to have any plan for how to make it happen.

Trump talked a big game about bringing manufacturing back to America, but his signature initiative the tariffs didnt make any headway in terms of reshoring. Trumps attempt to harangue American companies into no longer shipping jobs overseas, and his bungled attempt to get Foxconn to build a factory in rural Wisconsin, were even less effective. There was no perceptible increase in factory construction, manufacturing output, or employment.

Then came Biden. With a pair of landmark bills the (somewhat misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act he enacted Americas first real systematic manufacturing-oriented industrial policy since at least the early 1990s, and possibly since World War 2. A massive factory construction boom began almost immediately after the bills were signed:

What kind of factories are being built? The new spending is mostly on chips and batteries:

Inflation is down.

In fact, Biden did one other thing to help bring down inflation: He increased oil production. Although he came into office expecting to curb fracking in the name of the climate, the Ukraine war prompted an about-face. Biden opened up drilling, and the U.S. now produces more oil than any country ever has in the history of the world.

Cheaper oil doesnt just make gasoline cheaper (although it does do that). It allows all kinds of businesses to move people and goods around more cheaply, allowing to produce things more cheaply which lowers inflation.

So Biden did two big things to stop inflation reappointed Powell, and ensured cheap, plentiful oil. Both of those were in the face of pressure from his own party, and showed a lot of courage and leadership. Less spending on health insurance and student debt would have taken a little of the edge off inflation in 2021, but Bidens actions to bring down inflation in 2022 and 2023 outweigh the mistake.

This is going to be a tough one for the average person to believe simply because companies won't stop price gouging, .-.

More positive case for Biden:

-Biden is working toward a ceasefire in Gaza, along with the release of hostages.
-Biden will appoint liberal supreme court justices in the event Clarence Thomas kicks the bucket.
-Biden will work to restore reproductive rights to 1/3 of women who lost them due to overturning Roe V. Wade.
-Biden has forgiven a lot of student debt loan, but there's still work to do
-Biden has appointed mostly competent people. We, for example, don't have a wretched old hag running the department of education into the fucking ground.
-LGBT rights are safer
-Infrastructure is getting fixed
-Working on getting Marijuana to not longer be a Schedule I drug.
-Over the pill birth control pills are on the way
-Will continue combatting climate change
-New framework that helps lower income communities afford housing (unfortunately hasn't gone into effect yet and won't until 2026 assuming someone doesn't undo it)
-Got rid of junk fees
-College programs will lose funding if their students end up with too much debt
-He's pro-union.
-Airlines now have to offer cash refund instead of just vouchers when flights are delayed or cancelled

This is going to be a tough one for the average person to believe simply because companies won't stop price gouging, .-.

One thing that he's done that people won't like, but that has objectively helped...he's drilled drilled drilled.

More positive case for Biden:

-Biden is working toward a ceasefire in Gaza, along with the release of hostages.

-He's pro-union.

I would not cite this as a positive, personally

Also remember when railroad workers were striking and he told them "GET BACK TO WORK"

After months of negotiations, the IBEWs Railroad members at four of the largest U.S. freight carriers finally have what theyve long sought but that many working people take for granted: paid sick days.

This is a big deal, said Railroad Department Director Al Russo, because the paid-sick-days issue, which nearly caused a nationwide shutdown of freight rail just before Christmas, had consistently been rejected by the carriers. It was not part of last Decembers congressionally implemented update of the national collective bargaining agreement between the freight lines and the IBEW and 11 other railroad-related unions.

Were thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement, Russo said. Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.

We know that many of our members werent happy with our original agreement, Russo said, but through it all, we had faith that our friends in the White House and Congress would keep up the pressure on our railroad employers to get us the sick day benefits we deserve. Until we negotiated these new individual agreements with these carriers, an IBEW member who called out sick was not compensated.

While President Joe Biden was calling on Congress in November to pass legislation to implement the agreement, he stressed that he would continue to encourage the railroads to guarantee paid sick time for their employees.

This. Take care of that. Theyre fucking over the backbone of America.

Inflation is down.

I don't remember waking up in another dimension today.

I don't remember waking up in another dimension today.

What do you think inflation means?

I vote for the president who's policies I think are better. Not only fits Trump suck, but I think the Biden admin policies are better than Trump's. That's my standard, does this candidates policies lead the nation closer to where I think we should be going than the other candidate.

Higher prices.

Other than Israel, Biden has been surprisingly good. And in the case of Israel, the orange idiot would be far far far far worse. Why do people want the orange idiot to win?

And do you think inflation going down means that prices go lower?

That's literally what it means.

That's literally what it means.

It is not. When inflation goes down that means the price in which things are rising slows down

A reversal in the price of goods is deflation.

That's literally what it means.

-Biden is working toward a ceasefire in Gaza, along with the release of hostages.

"Inflation is down."

i wouldn't call him pro-union given his railway strike debacle, but otherwise he has a lot of positives you'll never see from a republican

if the little Biden has done can be considered impressive.

Post #12

You're just objectively wrong if you think what's been done has been "little'

And do you think inflation going down means that prices go lower?

Isn't inflation to prices as acceleration is to velocity? It's just a rate of change of prices increasing, right?

Joe Biden has been surprisingly successful as a President with his accomplishments so far. Really hope he gets reelected come November. Yes, he isn't perfect, but Trump is so much worse.