A confident Joe Biden responded to a reporter’s comment that Mitch McConnell said he would fight the bill at every turn was epic.
Joe Biden challenges Republicans.
President Joe Biden got some excellent news today.
Hiring accelerated last month as U.S. employers added 916,000 workers to their payrolls. It was the largest job gain since August, fueled in part by an improving public health outlook and a new round of $1,400 relief payments.
The unemployment rate dropped to 6%, from 6.2% in February. Unemployment among African Americans and Latinos remained elevated, at 9.6% and 7.9% respectively, but the gap with whites narrowed in March. Unemployment among Asian Americans rose to 6%, from 5.1% in February.
Biden called a press conference to highlight the good news and make it clear he intends to build from the bottom up and not the standard Republican trickle-down type building. The America Rescue Plan and the American Jobs Plan reflect that (COVID Relief Bill and Infrastructure Bill, respectively).
The President’s response to the reporter who asked him about McConnell’s obstruction of the American Jobs Plan was epic.
“If the Republicans argue that we don’t need,” Biden said. “They’ve been talking about the need for it for years now. If the Republicans decide that we need it, but they’re not going to pay for it, it’s just going to increase the deficit. If the Republicans say the next phase of my plan, we don’t need to invest in VA hospitals and keep the sacred obligation we made to so many Americans. If the Republicans say the 400,000 homes and schools and daycare centers that have lead pipes, delivering water to their doors. If they say, we shouldn’t be doing that. What do you think would happen if they found out all the lead pipes were up in the Capitol and every time they turned on the water fountain?”
Biden then pointed out that the bill passage is not up to Republican politicians but Americans, including those many Republicans who support it. It is Biden’s true definition of bipartisanship. The WaPo article “Biden’s brand of bipartisanship” says it all.
When asked at last week’s news conference about whether he was rejecting bipartisanship, Biden’s response was politically interesting: “I would like Republican — elected Republican — support, but what I know I have now is that I have electoral support from Republican voters. Republican voters agree with what I’m doing.”
This is a novel way of describing bipartisanship. Biden’s logic is that if he enacts policies that a significant fraction of Republican voters support, then it is bipartisan. In this polarized era, will this revamped definition hold up?
First, it is worth assessing whether Biden is correct about his support from Republican voters. The evidence is mixed. A new ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that 75 percent of voters approve of Biden’s handling of vaccine distribution — including a majority of GOP voters. Sixty percent of voters approve of Biden’s handling of the economic recovery, although that comes with only 23 percent of Republican support. On the latter, however, even elected Republicans acknowledge that they lost the narrative.
Republican politicians only have the interests of their corporate benefactors at hand. They fool their poor and middle-class supporters with smoke and mirrors. So far, Biden seems to have learned marketing as he has prevented Republicans from redefining what he is trying to accomplish, which is beneficial for all Americans.