I mean sure, they are accomplishments but a pittance for Americans looking for real change. The OP is speaking directly to the democrats setting their sights on progressive policy.
Biden wants to do the presidency like they did in the past, dodge any real conflict and keep the country running for another four years. He doesn’t care that if the country was a car its a Model T and thinks we should be happy that he changed the tires.
It doesn’t matter how many times a Democrat comes up to me and slams their fist saying, “look we stopped the Republicans and we did it without causing any waves.” Me, I want to see real policy that helps every American even if it makes the people on the hill uncomfortable. If you think, “well fuck that guy, what can he do? Vote republican?” I’ll tell you want I can do and that is be dissatisfied even when we both know I’m voting blue all day.
I wouldn’t say some of them are a pittance. The Inflation Reduction Act was so much investment into green energy that European countries had to pass similar bills to stay competitive. I work for a green energy company, and I heard that there were grumblings in European leadership about how much the US was spending.
Likewise, there’s been a ton of money forgiven in student loans, over $100 billion. And you’ve also got the price cap on insulin, or at least some formulations. That change came directly from Biden I think.
It’s significant changes, and it’s what we’re looking for, but I agree it isn’t enough and we need more. We can still appreciate though that we’re moving in the correct direction instead of being stuck. I’ll happily vote for Biden if it gives us more things like this.
I think there’s a key misunderstanding with regards to what real change should be.
The inflation reduction act seeks to curb inflation overall, that’s the goal. How do we measure the success of this bill? Well, that seems obvious - by looking at how it impacts inflation. Yet is that really meaningful change?
If I leave my house once a month, kick a wall as hard as possible, and then go to the hospital, does the hospital patching up my foot amount to meaningful change in my life? The damage to my foot gets worse every month. My actions eat up actual resources that could be better used to help others. Fixing my foot up is both literally, and figuratively treating the symptom and not the root cause.
The hole that everyone falls down is conflating real change to an immediate reduction in events and situations they personally don’t like. There is no single cause behind the high inflation we’ve seen in recent years. It’s not covid, it’s not printing too much money, it’s not republican or democratic leadership. It’s a byproduct of a collection of systems and their interactions with one another. The sum total of countless decisions spanning decades - from actual changes to monetary policy, to changes on how we teach monetary policy, to reactions to the 2008 crisis, or Covid, or globalization, etc, etc.
Putting an end to recent inflationary trends would do absolutely nothing to change the underlying systems that got us here today. It would do little to change our overall social and economic trajectories. The same goes for student loan forgiveness. Even if Biden made education free for all Americans, would the average American find themselves to be in a better financial situation than, say, 30 years ago? Beyond that, would that cost just magically go away, or simply be transfered elsewhere?
Given recent economic trends, cheaper and potentially free education is practically inevitable. The average worker is trending towards generalization, and the workplace is changing so rapidly that a variety of secondary industries centered around providing educational services to already educated adults have ballooned in size over the past decade. There is no realistic future where education isn’t far cheaper and more available, we’re simply at the point now where this reality is being reflected within the perceived pool of actions available to our leaders - in this particular instance made more available by an immediate need to appease a population segment that’s rapidly seen their future prospects dwindle.
None of what Biden has done is new with regards to actual impact on the average American. He has done exactly what plenty of other American presidents have done prior. The sole reason why you assign more value to his student debt relief program or the added renewable energy subsidies is because it impacts you directly, and is something you can relate to. He has addressed an immediate problem that you strongly relate to.
Some years ago I was enrolled in one of the first real college degrees specifically focused on training individuals to enter the modern renewable energy sector. As part of this program I spent a decent amount of time specifically researching climate policy, and in my own time I made an active effort to study the science behind climate change. This was something like 15 years ago now. One thing that was painfully obvious to me at the time was that significant climate change was practically inevitable.
Positive feedback loops weren’t well understood, but certainly studied and documented enough to be raising some massive red flags, yet climate models always seemed to lean towards optimism for what I can only assume was the sake of political buy-in. And here we are, in 2023, only just admitting that we won’t hit our 1.5C target that was set not even a decade prior. Most people seem to have been very aware that nothing meaningful would be done to prevent climate change.
So why then would you equate the recent surge in spending on renewable energy to real change? At this point in time real change with regards to th global climate crisis can only come as part of a massive, collective effort on behalf of the whole world comparable to what we saw during the great wars of the last century. Investing additional resources in a growing industry that is financially viable is hardly enacting meaningful change - that is simply operating as usual.
I just want to say that I appreciate how well thought out your reply is. I don’t really have a response, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging. You bring up a lot of good food for thought.
Maybe pittance is the wrong term but Bidens also done a lot to sit on his own nuts. I want Biden to act for the working class the same way he responds to anytime there may be an economic crisis when the banks fuck up. I want Biden to have the same level of urgency when he sees the blue collar people are flailing.
Now, I know anytime he bails out Wallstreet he gets zero resistance from the other side but for that exact reason we should expect an even greater response for working class people. Sure he will wheel and deal for us but will he ever stand up for us?
The rail unions said that the administration quietly worked behind the scenes to get them an agreement with actual sick days. So I think he will, but it depends on the topic and it may not be visible.
Why should he have to work behind the scenes? Who is he afraid he will make angry that citizens are receiving basic decency?
The owners of this country, that’s who. So when you say, “OH he’s just listening to the GOPs talking points”, the exact opposite. The GOP is stealing our talking points and pretending they could do better when we all know they will do much, much worse.
On one level I like that he’s working behind the scenes. I like a leader that does their job and gets shit done without tooting their own horn.
That said, it’s a very idealistic view of leadership, not a pragmatic one. I completely agree that he needs to really about the behind the scenes things. We don’t have the luxury of not advertising it.
I mean sure, they are accomplishments but a pittance for Americans looking for real change. The OP is speaking directly to the democrats setting their sights on progressive policy.
Biden wants to do the presidency like they did in the past, dodge any real conflict and keep the country running for another four years. He doesn’t care that if the country was a car its a Model T and thinks we should be happy that he changed the tires.
It doesn’t matter how many times a Democrat comes up to me and slams their fist saying, “look we stopped the Republicans and we did it without causing any waves.” Me, I want to see real policy that helps every American even if it makes the people on the hill uncomfortable. If you think, “well fuck that guy, what can he do? Vote republican?” I’ll tell you want I can do and that is be dissatisfied even when we both know I’m voting blue all day.
I wouldn’t say some of them are a pittance. The Inflation Reduction Act was so much investment into green energy that European countries had to pass similar bills to stay competitive. I work for a green energy company, and I heard that there were grumblings in European leadership about how much the US was spending.
Likewise, there’s been a ton of money forgiven in student loans, over $100 billion. And you’ve also got the price cap on insulin, or at least some formulations. That change came directly from Biden I think.
It’s significant changes, and it’s what we’re looking for, but I agree it isn’t enough and we need more. We can still appreciate though that we’re moving in the correct direction instead of being stuck. I’ll happily vote for Biden if it gives us more things like this.
I think there’s a key misunderstanding with regards to what real change should be.
The inflation reduction act seeks to curb inflation overall, that’s the goal. How do we measure the success of this bill? Well, that seems obvious - by looking at how it impacts inflation. Yet is that really meaningful change?
If I leave my house once a month, kick a wall as hard as possible, and then go to the hospital, does the hospital patching up my foot amount to meaningful change in my life? The damage to my foot gets worse every month. My actions eat up actual resources that could be better used to help others. Fixing my foot up is both literally, and figuratively treating the symptom and not the root cause.
The hole that everyone falls down is conflating real change to an immediate reduction in events and situations they personally don’t like. There is no single cause behind the high inflation we’ve seen in recent years. It’s not covid, it’s not printing too much money, it’s not republican or democratic leadership. It’s a byproduct of a collection of systems and their interactions with one another. The sum total of countless decisions spanning decades - from actual changes to monetary policy, to changes on how we teach monetary policy, to reactions to the 2008 crisis, or Covid, or globalization, etc, etc.
Putting an end to recent inflationary trends would do absolutely nothing to change the underlying systems that got us here today. It would do little to change our overall social and economic trajectories. The same goes for student loan forgiveness. Even if Biden made education free for all Americans, would the average American find themselves to be in a better financial situation than, say, 30 years ago? Beyond that, would that cost just magically go away, or simply be transfered elsewhere?
Given recent economic trends, cheaper and potentially free education is practically inevitable. The average worker is trending towards generalization, and the workplace is changing so rapidly that a variety of secondary industries centered around providing educational services to already educated adults have ballooned in size over the past decade. There is no realistic future where education isn’t far cheaper and more available, we’re simply at the point now where this reality is being reflected within the perceived pool of actions available to our leaders - in this particular instance made more available by an immediate need to appease a population segment that’s rapidly seen their future prospects dwindle.
None of what Biden has done is new with regards to actual impact on the average American. He has done exactly what plenty of other American presidents have done prior. The sole reason why you assign more value to his student debt relief program or the added renewable energy subsidies is because it impacts you directly, and is something you can relate to. He has addressed an immediate problem that you strongly relate to.
Some years ago I was enrolled in one of the first real college degrees specifically focused on training individuals to enter the modern renewable energy sector. As part of this program I spent a decent amount of time specifically researching climate policy, and in my own time I made an active effort to study the science behind climate change. This was something like 15 years ago now. One thing that was painfully obvious to me at the time was that significant climate change was practically inevitable.
Positive feedback loops weren’t well understood, but certainly studied and documented enough to be raising some massive red flags, yet climate models always seemed to lean towards optimism for what I can only assume was the sake of political buy-in. And here we are, in 2023, only just admitting that we won’t hit our 1.5C target that was set not even a decade prior. Most people seem to have been very aware that nothing meaningful would be done to prevent climate change.
So why then would you equate the recent surge in spending on renewable energy to real change? At this point in time real change with regards to th global climate crisis can only come as part of a massive, collective effort on behalf of the whole world comparable to what we saw during the great wars of the last century. Investing additional resources in a growing industry that is financially viable is hardly enacting meaningful change - that is simply operating as usual.
I just want to say that I appreciate how well thought out your reply is. I don’t really have a response, but I didn’t want to leave you hanging. You bring up a lot of good food for thought.
Maybe pittance is the wrong term but Bidens also done a lot to sit on his own nuts. I want Biden to act for the working class the same way he responds to anytime there may be an economic crisis when the banks fuck up. I want Biden to have the same level of urgency when he sees the blue collar people are flailing.
Now, I know anytime he bails out Wallstreet he gets zero resistance from the other side but for that exact reason we should expect an even greater response for working class people. Sure he will wheel and deal for us but will he ever stand up for us?
The rail unions said that the administration quietly worked behind the scenes to get them an agreement with actual sick days. So I think he will, but it depends on the topic and it may not be visible.
Why should he have to work behind the scenes? Who is he afraid he will make angry that citizens are receiving basic decency?
The owners of this country, that’s who. So when you say, “OH he’s just listening to the GOPs talking points”, the exact opposite. The GOP is stealing our talking points and pretending they could do better when we all know they will do much, much worse.
On one level I like that he’s working behind the scenes. I like a leader that does their job and gets shit done without tooting their own horn.
That said, it’s a very idealistic view of leadership, not a pragmatic one. I completely agree that he needs to really about the behind the scenes things. We don’t have the luxury of not advertising it.