Opinion | Requiem for Biden’s Agenda – By Jonathan Chait (Intelligencer) / July 20, 2022
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The most depressing thing about the demise of the Biden administration’s social-policy agenda — other than the demise itself, of course — is the atmosphere of sheer economic illiteracy that surrounded it. Critics of the measure, ultimately including Joe Manchin himself, made arguments against it that were not so much misguided as lacking any elemental grasp of the basic principles involved (“not even wrong”).
The main argument used against Biden’s plan was that it would worsen inflation, with conservatives scolding Biden for ignoring the sage insights of Larry Summers. To take just one example, pundit Marc Thiessen wrote that Biden signed an economic stimulus in March 2021 “despite warnings from even liberal economists, such as former Treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, who cautioned the president that his plan would ‘set off inflationary pressures of a kind we have not seen in a generation.” Thiessen went on: “The first rule of holes is: When you are in one, stop digging. So, when you are in a hole of spiraling inflation, the obvious first step is: stop spending.”
Later in the same column, Thiessen switched metaphors, scolding again, “But instead of trying to tamp down the flames, Biden keeps trying to pour gasoline on the inferno, with more spending and more free money from Washington.” The tone of this column, like many of the right-wing polemics, is one of incredulous condescension. Biden is such a blithering idiot that he is ignoring the obvious conclusion and instead digging holes and pouring gasoline or whatever.
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