Biden Deserves Far More Credit Than He’s Received
I’m publishing this series of articles to share and discuss my ruminations on coping with a troubled and messy world. You can “follow” me to never miss an article.
In his Op-Ed, Paul Krugman rightly laments that far too many Americans believe that President Biden has not done as much as he should[i]. To the contrary, Economic Growth is not only good, but it’s defied forecasts of a Recession. Unemployment is near a 50-year low. Inflation has fallen such that it’s close to the target of the Federal Reserve. And the Stock Market keeps hitting new highs. One of the least acknowledged facts is that not only have Murders plummeted, but that Violent Crime has also hit another 50-year low.
Given that Trump and Republicans are extremely reluctant, if it’s not virtually impossible for them, to acknowledge President Biden’s accomplishments, he deserves a great deal of credit. True, as Krugman notes, Presidents don’t control the Stock Market and they don’t have all that much influence on the Economy as a whole. Still, he gives President Biden some credit for the strength of the Economy.
All of which highlights the one area. Health Care, in which Presidents can make a significant difference. Indeed, Krugman gives President Biden high scores for his efforts with regard to Health Care.
Thus, President Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act reduced Maximum Health Care Payments, thereby making Health Care Coverage substantially more affordable for Middle Class Americans.
This only makes the potential Bad News even more forbidding. If Trump wins, he will once again try to get rid of Obamacare. While promising to offer something “better,” the Congressional Budget Office estimates that within a decade, it would raise the number of uninsured by 32 million.
Krugman’s closing words are filled with a dire warning:
“So, one more reminder of how much is at stake this year.”
Finally, as I read Paul Krugman and all of the other excellent columnists in The New York Times with their timely comments and perceptive observations, I am constantly reminded of the Historian Heather Cox Richardson and her excellent analyses of Human Affairs. Thus, in her book, To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party[ii], she notes that throughout the History of the Party, there have been countless demagogues similar to Trump who’ve advocated the same hurtful and disastrous Policies. True, Trump is in a class of his own, arguably the worst of them all, but he’s definitively in the same mold as those who’ve come before him. Even his pitiful campaign slogan to “Make America Great Again” is not totally without precedent.
The point is that we keep fighting the same battles again and again. Indeed, we have no choice but to keep fighting them. We cannot give in the forces of Ignorance and Small-mindedness.
Finally, it cannot be forgotten, as Ms. Richardson reminds us, that with their past prolonged support of Slavery, Democrats have not always been better.
[i] Paul Krugman, “Bidencare Is a Really Big Deal,” The New York Times, Friday, January 26, 2024, P A 24.
[ii] Heather Cox Richardson, To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party, Basic Books, New York, 2014 and 2021.
Ian I. Mitroff is credited as being one of the principal founders of the modern field of Crisis Management. He has a BS, MS, and a PhD in Engineering and the Philosophy of Social Systems Science from UC Berkeley. He Is Professor Emeritus from the Marshall School of Business and the Annenberg School of Communication at USC. Currently, he is a Senior Research Affiliate in the Center for Catastrophic Risk Management, UC Berkeley. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Academy of Management. He has published 41 books. His latest is: The Socially Responsible Organization: Lessons from Covid, Springer, New York, 2022.
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