This Politico article from May 2024 does a good job summarizing Biden’s legislative achievements and then gets into a central problem that seems to be facing our country in recent decades – implementation is very, very hard. And because it is very hard, politicians who promise they can deliver substantive, tangible results often have trouble demonstrating clearly that they have delivered what they promised.
Now, I think Biden was a great president with substantial accomplishments, for about three years. I think his legacy, unfortunately, is likely to be determined by that last year. He should have announced in early 2023 that he was going to retire gracefully at the end of his first term, and allowed a full Democratic Party primary to play out. If that had happened, maybe we would be exactly where we are today, after a Kamala Harris nomination and close loss. And maybe we wouldn’t – maybe she would have nominated and run a more organized, successful campaign that reached an extra 2% of voters. Or maybe a more dynamic leader would have emerged. Anyway, that is not what happened here in this particular universe which is real as far as we can tell. So let’s talk Biden.
Biden had four major legislative accomplishments. The dollar figures below include what was appropriated (approved/required to be spent) by Congress plus tax breaks:
- the 2021 pandemic relief package (“American Rescue Plan”) – $45 billion
- the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure investment law (aka the “no catchy name” act?) – about $840 billion
- the 2022 “CHIPS and Science Act” – maybe $60-70 billion? (Politico has done a decent job laying out the numbers in graphics and text but it is still not perfectly clear)
- the 2022 climate and energy-focused “Inflation Reduction Act” – about $500 billion, largely through tax breaks?
The Politico article paints a picture of Biden being frustrated after he expected to spend the last couple years of his term at ribbon cuttings taking full political credit for accomplishments produced by these bills. I think a few things have happened here.
First, implementation is slow. Realistically, investing a trillion dollars productively is going to take time, and it is probably good for it to take time. Good investments require planning, and planning takes time. Well planned, slow and steady investments in infrastructure, research and development, and manufacturing capacity seem like a great idea to me in the real economic world. In my rationally planned infrastructure fantasy world, well-thought-out, frequently updated comprehensive plans would exist at the metropolitan area scale with construction projects queued up for bid as soon as funding can be found. The real world is not like this, but an idealistic vision can provide a direction to steer our ship. Funding would come more from the private sector when unemployment is low, and more from the government when unemployment ticks up and private credit is tight. There also has to be money and a plan for operation and maintenance of whatever is built, which is also politically unsexy. All of this could be legislated, but it would have to be done in advance as an automated rule, rather than requiring Congress to react in real time to the business cycle, which it can’t do.
Second, implementation is hard, and it seems to be harder in our country than it needs to be. There is a lot of debate on the reasons, but it is some combination of labor cost/scarcity, capacity/competence of domestic firms and workers, lack of competition, slow productivity growth in certain industries (particularly construction), and corruption. There are policy options to address all of these, but either they are politically inconvenient (like more visas for guest workers or allowing foreign firms greater access to our markets) or our politicians don’t understand them.
Third, at least some slow and steady implementation definitely happened, and Biden had trouble taking political credit for it. A November 2024 NPR article talked about this. The ribbon cutting press release strategy just didn’t get much media attention at a time when the public was more focused on disappearing household disposable incomes. Arguably, maybe, the administration wasn’t savvy enough with modern communication styles and tools to get the public’s fragmented attention. Or more ominously, maybe the public’s attention is so fragmented it can’t be gotten with any kind of rational, positive message. I am also thinking back to the 2021 stimulus, when my household disposable income definitely increased due to the stimulus package. This was done so quietly and invisibly as a tax credit directly to my bank account (which I had used to pay my taxes electronically), I barely noticed it. This was economic brilliance at a time when people really needed the help, and it may have saved our country. Politically, maybe the Democrats should have had party operatives knocking on my door and handing me a check. Or maybe they should have done that with some randomly chosen fraction of people and made sure they had the media in tow.
A final thought – since implementation is hard and slow, a lot of Trump’s agenda is trying to throw up obstacles to implementation of Biden’s trillion dollars. He will probably thwart some but not all of it. So Biden’s positive legacy will continue to play out.