I think that’s a no true Scotsman kind of thing. Biden has done plenty of progressive policies. He’s forgiven billions in student loan debt (and wanted to forgive more but R courts are political), he’s passed infrastructure, and he’s also passed some bills to keep the cost of medicine down.
Could he do more? Sure. If voters showed up at the midterms and gave him a D house, he could have done more. But they didn’t.
Way too often, people let perfect be the enemy of good. Biden is good, not perfect.
Biden passed comprehensive student loan forgiveness, and it was struck down by the supreme court for bullshit reasons. He’s using the mechanisms of government that he can control.
No I didn’t forget. But that’s not what you were talking about. You were talking about the student loans forgiven during Biden’s term. That’s being done under the PSLF program signed into law by G.W. Bush in 2007.
He literally passed a bill, and republicans used the courts to strike it down. Biden then uses the mechanisms of government he can control, and still helps SOME people
Naw that doesn’t count it’s a participation trophy.
No he didn’t. The attempted at student loan forgiveness you’re referring to was done through an executive order. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
Also, I suspect he fully intended for it to fail for two reasons.
Joe Biden voted numerous times to make student loan debt difficult to remove through bankruptcies during his time as senator. There is no reason to think he suddenly was in favor of student loan forgiveness.
At the same time he announced this attempt he announced student loan debt repayments would restart. Obviously this wasn’t going to go over well and he needed some popular news to drown out that aspect. It worked. Student loan payments resumed and student loan forgiveness failed.
They did use them as best they could. They were hamstrung by a filibustering Senate, and two conservative Democrat senators (Sinema and Manchin) who refused to support getting rid of it, making killing the proposition of killing the filibuster DOA. As a result, their only choice to pass legislation was budget reconciliation, which aren’t subject to filibuster. The issue is that reconciliation has several big limits:
The bill has to be related to government spending, revenue, and the debt ceiling. You can’t toss in things like minimum wage increases or voting rights legislation.
You can only pass one of these bills per year (theoretically you can do more, but additional reconciliation bills have to go through the budgrt committee and with a 50/50 senate the GOP can just skip those meetings to deny quorum and keep it stuck)
Whatever passes still has to get at least 50 votes, which means either appeasing Manchin/Sinema or getting Republican votes (which ain’t gonna happen)
And despite that, we still got the CHIPS act, an infrastructure bill, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which–even with Manchinema throwing as many grenades in the process as they could get away with–was the biggest climate change bill in our country’s history. Not perfect, no, but a sizable step in the right direction, for once.
Oh, he’s certainly the most liberal since Kennedy. But he’s not progressive except in the slogans of centrists.
I think that’s a no true Scotsman kind of thing. Biden has done plenty of progressive policies. He’s forgiven billions in student loan debt (and wanted to forgive more but R courts are political), he’s passed infrastructure, and he’s also passed some bills to keep the cost of medicine down.
Could he do more? Sure. If voters showed up at the midterms and gave him a D house, he could have done more. But they didn’t.
Way too often, people let perfect be the enemy of good. Biden is good, not perfect.
Using a program signed into law by George W Bush. Does that mean Bush was also a progressive?
Biden passed comprehensive student loan forgiveness, and it was struck down by the supreme court for bullshit reasons. He’s using the mechanisms of government that he can control.
Or did you forget that part?
No I didn’t forget. But that’s not what you were talking about. You were talking about the student loans forgiven during Biden’s term. That’s being done under the PSLF program signed into law by G.W. Bush in 2007.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Service_Loan_Forgiveness
If forgiving loans under this program is one reason to call Biden a progressive then the same would apply to Bush.
So I’ll ask you again, was Bush also a progressive?
And you ignored my part of the conversation. He DID pass comprehensive student loan debt relief. Republicans used lawfare to halt the program.
Does that not count?
This was part of your conversation. You’re just deflecting because you had no idea what the PSLF program was or how it came to be.
And no I don’t give participation trophies to presidents. Especially when I suspect they wanted it to fail in the first place.
He literally passed a bill, and republicans used the courts to strike it down. Biden then uses the mechanisms of government he can control, and still helps SOME people
🙄
No he didn’t. The attempted at student loan forgiveness you’re referring to was done through an executive order. You have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/08/qa-on-bidens-student-loan-forgiveness/
Also, I suspect he fully intended for it to fail for two reasons.
If Democrats had used the majorities we gave them during his first two years instead of getting in their own way, this would be a convincing argument.
Biden had numerous accomplishments from his first 2 years, lol.
That’s completely disingenuous.
That’s why I said Democrats and not Biden.
They did use them as best they could. They were hamstrung by a filibustering Senate, and two conservative Democrat senators (Sinema and Manchin) who refused to support getting rid of it, making killing the proposition of killing the filibuster DOA. As a result, their only choice to pass legislation was budget reconciliation, which aren’t subject to filibuster. The issue is that reconciliation has several big limits:
The bill has to be related to government spending, revenue, and the debt ceiling. You can’t toss in things like minimum wage increases or voting rights legislation.
You can only pass one of these bills per year (theoretically you can do more, but additional reconciliation bills have to go through the budgrt committee and with a 50/50 senate the GOP can just skip those meetings to deny quorum and keep it stuck)
Whatever passes still has to get at least 50 votes, which means either appeasing Manchin/Sinema or getting Republican votes (which ain’t gonna happen)
And despite that, we still got the CHIPS act, an infrastructure bill, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which–even with Manchinema throwing as many grenades in the process as they could get away with–was the biggest climate change bill in our country’s history. Not perfect, no, but a sizable step in the right direction, for once.
That’s what I mean by getting in their own way.