Biden’s Legislative Accomplishments Mount - Horowitz

Biden’s Legislative Accomplishments Mount - Horowitz

Fueled by what turned out to be a highly productive summer, President Biden has assembled an impressive list of legislative accomplishments as he nears the half-way mark of his first term. Taken together, the adoption of the Inflation Reduction Act, accelerating the needed transition to non-producing renewable energy, lowering prescription drug prices and buttressing Obama Care, the Chips and Science Act, greenlighting a major investment in domestic production of semiconductors and in science research, the PACT Act, expanding health care for veterans exposed to burn pits, and what NPR accurately called the “first major gun safety law passed in nearly 30 years,” adds up to the most productive legislative summer in recent memory. These accomplishments come on top of the passage of a $1 trillion infrastructure package and the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.

 

The president’s significant legislative achievements are all the more remarkable, given the slender majorities Democrats have in Congress.  With a 50-50 Senate, the administration cannot afford to lose a single senator to realize success on most of its initiatives.  There is only a bit more wiggle room in the House, where the current partisan breakdown of 220 Democrats and 211 Republicans means that the desertion of 5 Democratic members can result in a bill being defeated,

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Additionally, Biden successfully put together needed bipartisan support for some of his big legislative wins.  This was the case for the gun safety legislation, the chips legislation, the veterans’ health care legislation, and the infrastructure legislation.  Wisely rejecting the advice of some Democrats to forego efforts at bipartisanship because they deemed them futile in these highly polarized political times. the president remained true to his conviction that with persistent effort and quiet political diplomacy, it was still possible to achieve a measure of Republican support for some of his priorities.  He also recognized that given that the votes did not exist for doing away with or even substantially reforming the filibuster, 60 votes would be needed for most legislation to pass the US Senate. This inescapable reality--by definition --meant that legislative victories required the backing of at least some Republican senators.

 

It is the case that Biden’s legislative accomplishments do not come close to matching the transformational ones of FDR or LBJ—as some Biden allies claimed was a possibility for his presidency in its heady early days. This was always going to be an overreach, given this President does not have the large Congressional majorities that both of those former presidents enjoyed.  President Biden’s legislative record at this point in his presidency, however, compares favorably with his more recent predecessors.

 

Mr. Biden, for example, succeeded in passing major infrastructure legislation that will repair and upgrade our decaying roads, bridges, airports, public transportation and sewage systems, while these needed investments were stalled under his two immediate predecessors.  He was also successful in shepherding a landmark climate initiative as part of the recent Inflation Reduction Act, providing nearly $400 billion to incentivize the transition to non-carbon producing renewable energy.  Independent experts estimate that this investment will put us within striking distance of the administration’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gases to 50% below 2005 emissions by 2030.  This major legislative accomplishment has restored United States credibility on the climate on the world stage, an important precondition for the kind of proactive and effective United States climate diplomacy needed to persuade other large carbon emitters to do their share.  This greatly improves the odds of keeping the rise in global temperature to the 1.5% Celsius or 2.7% Fahrenheit increase from pre-industrial levels that scientists tell us is essential to avoiding the worst consequences of global warming.

 

The impressive legislative victories so far have only led to a slight rise in President Biden’s anemic approval ratings.   But they have quieted a widespread narrative that he was essentially a political dead man walking. 

 

Far more importantly, presidential popularity is an ephemeral measure that goes up and down. The accomplishments Joe Biden is assembling, however, will not only make a significant dent in some of the major problems we face; they will stand the test of time.