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Biden failing in his mission to unite

China Daily | Updated: 2021-11-09 08:02

The dome of the US Capitol Building is seen as the sun sets on Capitol Hill in Washington in this file photo. [Photo/Agencies]

The United States House of Representatives passed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill proposed by the Joe Biden administration by a narrow margin last week. It is comparable to a shot in the arm for the Biden administration, as it rescues its faltering domestic agenda.

The Senate passed the bill in early August, thanks to the Democrats' slim majority. But the bill has suffered repeated setbacks in the House of Representatives, where the Democrats hold an even larger majority.

The opposition lawmakers worry that the bill's spending is too aggressive, will drive up inflation and is likely to lead to waste and corruption.

Inflation is indeed a concern to the administration. To overcome the COVID-19 pandemic's impacts on the economy, the US government started carrying out massive bailout plans last year, and inflation has risen rapidly. When Biden took office, the inflation rate was below 2 percent. And now it is about 5.4 percent, and shows no signs of declining in the foreseeable future.

Biden's big spending plan requires a big increase in fiscal spending on top of that. It cannot be achieved by simply raising taxes on the rich. In fact, it can only be achieved by increasing the Federal Reserve's debt and printing money on a massive scale.

So even if the infrastructure bill is adopted, it only serves to postpone the economic crises the US is facing. That's why the support rate of Biden has been continuously dropping since July, with growing doubts about his governing ability.

Soon after Biden took office, the repressed differences within the Democratic Party began to emerge, and the once "advanced" concept represented by the so-called radical left is no longer the driving force for the Democratic Party to advance, but the "raging beast" that threatens to tear apart the Democratic Party.

There is no doubt that Biden is the president with the most popular votes in US history and the first US presidential candidate to win more than 80 million votes. This should have made him the most popular president. Moreover, both Biden himself and the Democratic Party will declare that approval of his spending plan is a victory for Biden and the political ideals of the Democrats.

But why has the magic of his appeal faded in just over half a year? If Biden cannot unite the Democrats, how can he unite US society? Except by resorting to attacking China abroad and printing bank notes at home, his administration has not yet demonstrated the ability or vision that match its ambitions to enable the US to lead the world by the power of its example.

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