Last Thursday, as President Biden suffered through what a well-loved children’s book might have called a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, conservative commentator Jack Posobiec tweeted: “Today was historic. We saw the end of the Biden administration."
That’s hyperbole, of course. Presidencies ebb and flow; look up Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to see proof of that. Mr. Biden is only about to begin the second of four years.
Still, it’s hard to imagine a worse stretch than the one the president endured last week. His push for new voting-rights legislation appeared to die in the Senate, where his Build Back Better social-services and climate-change legislation already lies comatose. The Supreme Court killed his administration’s Covid-19 vaccine mandate for large employers. Government data showed inflation at the highest level in four decades. Diplomacy to prevent a Russian invasion of Ukraine appeared to stall.
What that does mean is that the next month is crucial for Mr. Biden and his party. They need a plan to gain some traction and forward momentum before Mr. Biden’s March State of the Union address—and before voter attitudes harden ahead of this fall’s midterm elections. Conversations with Democrats suggest a series of steps they would like to see now.
In many ways, the road starts with progress against the coronavirus. “Covid just hangs over everything," says Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell. Democrats can hope that expert predictions that the Omicron variant soon will peak, and will remain less lethal than its predecessors, are borne out—but hope isn’t a policy. What some Democrats are looking for are more steps to end embarrassingly long lines for Covid-19 tests, and continued federal moves to help stressed hospitals.
Meantime, inflation is emerging as a problem almost as insidious as Covid-19. One of the reasons inflation is so politically damaging is that it is felt by literally every American. Only some are unemployed, and only some may see their wages stagnate, but everybody feels inflation.
To the extent today’s inflation upsurge is the natural result of a recovery from the economic distortions the pandemic has created over the last two years, and continues to create, there is a limit to what the Biden administration can do about it.
But what can be done, some Democrats argue, is to move aggressively and visibly to shrink the supply-chain bottlenecks creating the shortages that fuel inflation. “There has to be an energetic response to the supply chain crisis and the lack of production," says Rep. Ro Khanna of California. “Every day we ought to be talking about what we can do to increase the supply, the goods…. This is actually bipartisan."
That kind of effort could take many forms. More federal help to end backlogs at ports. A summit meeting with trucking companies to explore ways to help them attract and keep drivers. A House vote to fund the CHIPS Act, legislation designed to boost domestic production of the semiconductors that all sorts of manufacturers find in short supply. That would be a long-term rather than a short-term solution, but it remains a mystery why the House has yet to vote to fund chip legislation.
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Most Democrats also hope to revive, in smaller form, the Build Back Better legislation. As originally constructed, that bill proved to be an overreach, trying to enact in one fell swoop more social and climate programs than Democrats had the votes to actually pass.
Yet walking away from the effort would mean Democrats would walk away from plans to help parents and working families that most in the party consider core to the party’s identity. “We need to figure out a strategy for BBB," says Rep. Dingell.
That would require Democratic progressives to park their anger at West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, whose opposition spelled doom for the original legislation. Though he’s angry at the White House for publicly blaming him for the legislation’s downfall, Mr. Manchin appears prepared to work with other congressional Democrats on a smaller package.
“Let’s listen to Sen. Manchin, give him the respect that he deserves to be the 51st vote (to pass the legislation), and see how we can come to a consensus," says Rep. Khanna, himself a leading progressive. “Passing something that helps working families is better than passing nothing."
The battle over voting rights now may move from Washington out into the states, where Democrats are paying the price for years of insufficient attention. Oh, and one other thing some Democrats are seeking: Less talk about what hasn’t happened, and more about what has been done, including a giant Covid-19 relief package and bipartisan infrastructure legislation last year. “You don’t talk about what you didn’t get," Democratic strategist James Carville said on NBC’s “Meet the Press" Sunday. “Quit being a whiny party."
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text
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