As you well know, Biden’s first 100 days in office are officially up. And with that, there are plenty of people who want to comment on how he’s done so far.
Naturally, there are plenty of progressives who favor what he’s done, from climate change-friendly policies to opening our borders for all. And just as expectedly, there are large numbers of right-wingers who vehemently oppose Biden’s actions thus far.
But what is really telling is the number of staunch liberals and once Biden fans who are now very concerned about where he’s taking the country.
Former Obama economic adviser Steven Rattner is one such individual.
Chief among Rattner’s concerns is the Biden administration’s $6 trillion in new spending bills. According to the former adviser, it’s not only the massive increase in deficit the country will incur but also the incredible “potential for mistakes.”
As Rattner told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday, that the “potential for mistakes, failure of execution here is high. … And if it fails … I think it will set back the cause of progressivism for several more decades.”
To him, it’s all about job execution, or the ability to get what is planned out and said to happen to actually be put in place and work for the American people. He notes that the plans are intricate and have many moving parts, making one or more massive failures a very high likelihood.
“Sure, I worry about inflation. Sure, I worry about the deficit and the debt. But I also worry about the execution job here. This is a massive execution job. The last plan, the jobs plan alone, had 76 separate initiatives in it. All have to be created and executed.”
And that’s the hard part.
“Getting it executed, I think, in some ways, is going to be the president’s biggest challenge. He’s got to deliver, not just the passage, but the actual real results for Americans, and programs that people perceive are working or else we go back to government being the enemy again.”
Now, I didn’t know that a fellow American citizen, regardless of party or political views, could be considered the enemy, but I digress…
What’s essential to point out here is that this concern of Rattner’s isn’t one based on mere what-ifs and a tendency to be pessimistic. No, Rattner has seen with his own eyes the massive failings of the Democrat Party and now-President Joe Biden before when it comes to policies and economics.
Do you remember Obama’s $840 stimulus package put out in 2009?
Similar to the ones being currently proposed, Obama’s also had many moving parts. As the former president said of his strategy, “With a plan of this scale comes enormous responsibility to get it right. That is why I have asked Vice President Biden to lead a tough, unprecedented oversight effort – because nobody messes with Joe.”
Obama put Joe in charge of holding the plan accountable for “every dollar they spend.” And yet, within months, there were reports of massive fraud and misappropriation of those hard-earned taxpayer funds.
The National Review’s Jim Geraghty reminds us of the Solyndra fiasco. It was a government-backed solar panel company fresh off the press that went bankrupt nearly overnight, but only after spending some $535 million of taxpayer dollars in loan guarantees.
Or what about stimulus funds for “drunken mice at Florida Atlantic University, … ‘turtle tunnel’ in Florida, … Che Guevara – inspired puppet theater in Minnesota, … research supersonic corporate jets, … grant from the National Science Foundation for a Yale University study looking at ducks’ sexual behavior, (and) the tree giveaway program for wealthy neighborhoods in Denver?”
As Geraghty notes, this is just the “waste” of that plan.
It doesn’t even begin to get into the actual fraud that took place, of which 1,268 cases were filed.
Suffice it say that Obama’s plans failed, and miserably at that – all with the help of Biden watching the spending. And as a result, the nation took a quick turn towards conservatism, electing former President Donald Trump into office after Obama.
No wonder Rattner doesn’t have faith that Biden’s plans or ability to watch the government spending will work. He knows all too well what will happen when Biden fails again. The nation will once again look to the “enemy” for leadership and likely for a much longer period.
Is it wrong for me to say I hope that he fails?