MoA | In the 1990s and early 2000s Biden supported bankruptcy reform that made it more difficult, especially for the poor, to get rid of debt:
[Biden] had pushed for two earlier bankruptcy reform bills in 2000 and 2001, both of which failed. But in 2005, BAPCPA made it through, successfully erecting all kinds of roadblocks for Americans struggling with debt, and doing so just before the financial crisis of 2008. Since BAPCPA passed, Chapter 13 filings went from representing just 24 percent of all bankruptcy filings per year to 39 percent in 2017.
Before that Biden had called for cuts to Social Security:
In 1984 he proposed freezing Social Security benefits — that is, ending cost-of-living adjustments that boost benefits to keep up with inflation. In January 1995 he gave a speech endorsing a balanced budget amendment (an utterly lunatic policy) and boasted about his previous record of proposing "that we freeze every single solitary program in the government, anything the government had to do with, every single solitary one, that we not spend a penny more, not even accounting for inflation, than we spent the year before." In November 1995 he did so again, boasting that "I tried with Senator Grassley back in the '80s to freeze all government spending, including Social Security, including everything."
There are other non-progressive laws and several wars that had Biden's support. In the current fight over the debt ceiling the Republicans demand cuts to several welfare bills. It is certainly not obvious that Biden is against those. He may well be using the debt ceiling fight to push for politics he favors but which a majority of Democrats would otherwise oppose.
Talks have been held in the White House with Senate and House majority and minority leaders. There were no serious results because the Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer held Biden back from making concessions to the Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy:
The California Republican had vented to his colleagues just hours before the meeting that the current format of negotiations — with all four party leaders in a room with the president — wasn’t fruitful. Speaking to his conference on Tuesday morning, McCarthy said the five of them had achieved little in their first sitdown last week, arguing that Schumer had prevented Biden from fully engaging with the speaker and McConnell, according to two people familiar with his remarks. Whenever Biden did seem to agree with Republicans, McCarthy said Schumer would try to cut him off.
The talks will now continue without the Senate leadership:
Leaders agreed to narrow a bicameral negotiation down to Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Biden, hoping fewer players might be more productive in reaching a bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling. Even then, it looks like a longshot to some Senate Democrats.
That setting will give Biden the opportunity to make 'concessions' that are favored by his rich donors but opposed by a majority of people who voted for him. He will then sell those by presenting them as the only possible step to take. Maggie Thatcher's "There is no alternative!" will again succeed.
The current due date for a debt ceiling deal is Friday:
Reflecting the growing sense of urgency, the White House announced Tuesday that the president will cut short his trip to Asia and now plans return to Washington on Sunday in order to resume negotiations with Republicans as soon as possible.Biden will depart Wednesday for a trip to Japan but will no longer make stops in Papua New Guinea and Australia before returning stateside.
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