In
President Biden’s inaugural address, he called repeatedly for unity.
He
said, “We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces,
stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity, there is no
peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage.”
I
was glad to hear him say that.
I
took it as an invitation to bipartisanship.
It
sounded like the Joe Biden I knew as a senator. So, I reached out early on to
offer to work with him on lowering the cost of prescription drugs.
But,
right out of the gate, he rejected a good faith offer to work together on another
COVID relief package, as Republicans and Democrats had on five others.
Even
with the narrowest of majorities, and you can’t get more narrow than a 50-50
Senate, President Biden let his party’s agenda be dictated by the most radical
progressive wing.
The
radicals refused to compromise on a wish list having nothing to do with COVID.
President
Biden should instead have listened to Larry Summers. He was President Clinton’s
Treasury Secretary and President Obama’s chief economic advisor.
Professor
Summers warned that all the spending the progressives were insisting on would
fuel the fires of inflation.
But,
that two trillion dollar spending binge just whet the appetite of young
radicals in the Democrat Party who don’t remember the 1970’s stagflation.
Instead
of offering to find common ground on issues like prescription drug pricing, the
Democrats wasted much of the year trying to spend another four trillion dollars
on a slew of new entitlement programs.
His
one significant bipartisan achievement – passing a bipartisan infrastructure
bill – was all but gift wrapped and handed to him by a bipartisan group of
Senators.
Even
then, liberal Democrat’s nearly derailed it by insisting its fate be tied to
passage of their unrelated liberal spending spree.
Thankfully,
moderate Democrats in the House successfully delinked the two bills and sent
infrastructure to the President’s desk.
Even
more importantly – thanks to the leadership of Senator Manchin, along with the
principled stand of Senator Sinema – Democrats multitrillion-dollar liberal
spending spree floundered.
As
a result, we avoided piling even more gasoline on the inflation fire.
But,
as Larry Summers warned, and Senator Manchin feared, the fire of inflation is
already burning brightly.
It
is picking the pockets of hard working Americans, which are paying more for gas
and groceries and everything else.
President
Biden’s reluctance to stand up to radical voices in his own party or listen to
moderate criticisms has led to failure after failure.
There’s
his decision day one to shut down the Keystone Pipeline, and more recently to
not shut down Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
He
pulled the few remaining troops out of Afghanistan in a chaotic hurry, leaving
Americans stranded.
He
has even accused friends across the aisle he has long worked with of being Jim
Crow racists.
This
isn’t the uniting President he promised he would be on January 20 of last year.
The
good news is that it is not too late to change course.
Trying
to be FDR without his popularity and supermajority in Congress has failed.
I
invite President Biden to face reality, ignore radicals in his party, whether
in Congress or on his staff and work across the aisle in the way I know he can.
Be
the president you promised to be at your inauguration.
The
American people want action on issues they are facing today, like inflation,
the spike in violent crime and prescription drug costs.
