At think tank, suggestions on Biden's approach
By YIFAN XU in Washington | China Daily Global | Updated: 2022-01-20 11:30
US President Joe Biden's first year in office generated some ideas on what could be done differently at a webinar by the Brookings Institution on Wednesday.
During the webinar, "Biden's first year: Successes, failures, and what lies ahead", William Galston, deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings, said that "most of President Biden's wounds have been self-inflicted".
"President Biden knew exactly what the legislative numbers of margins were the day he took office (such as a 50-50 Senate), and the job of a leader is to function effectively within constraints, not to pretend that they don't exist," said Galston.
Galston said that as forecast by many economists, the pandemic-driven American Rescue Plan Act was "about twice as large as it should have been" and would be "inflationary".
"It's not the only cause of the inflation, but it poured fuel on a fire that was already smoldering," he said.
On the Build Back Better plan and two voting rights bills, Galston said that Biden knew early that the legislation would pass with Democrat votes only, "so negotiations within the Democratic Party were absolutely critical".
But Galston said Biden "unwisely subcontracted those negotiations to the congressional leadership, which proved unequal to the task".
On the COVID-19 pandemic, Galston said the administration was "putting all the eggs in the vaccine basket, forgetting about testing, forgetting about adequate stocks of high-quality masks — N95 and KN95 masks".
On inflation, the administration "first denied it was happening, then said it was in scattered areas, and then said it was transitory, and finally after almost a year, got around to admitting that it was a real problem", so Americans "were getting angry that the administration seems not to be focusing on what they could see right in front of them", Galston said.
"I think the Biden administration made serious mistakes during its first year and needs a course correction urgently," he said.
"This is about broken promises and failed expectations," Rashawn Ray, a senior fellow in governance studies at Brookings, said on the eve of the first anniversary of Biden's inauguration. His viewpoint was that Biden didn't get enough changes through Congress, such as the voting rights measures and police reform.
He said Biden's scorecard "should have Democrats worried going into the midterm elections (in November) and even moving forward".
Sarah Binder, also a senior fellow in governance studies, listed four significant constraints under which Biden and Democrats have pursued their campaign pledges and policy agendas.
The first constraint is "tough conditions on the slimmest of majorities in Congress", while the second is "a lot of partisan team play".
The COVID-19 pandemic is the third constraint because it "puts on the plate of Biden and the Congress issues they probably don't want to be dealing with".
The fourth constraining factor is "a very partisan approach" at the Supreme Court; "last week's … refusal to allow the Biden and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) order to go forward".
On Jan 13, the Supreme Court blocked Biden's COVID19 vaccination-or-testing mandate for large businesses.
Galston also suggested that Biden could visit ports with the supply chain task force, to make it a publicly visible effort.
On the pandemic, Galson emphasized that the administration should "focus on therapeutics, on masks and on testing equipment, to make a difference".