Joe Biden’s Record Laid Bare
While we’ve briefly touched on how Biden and Carper marched in lockstep on behalf of the credit card banks and Big Pharma, we, or, to be more specific, I, have been derelict in providing an analysis of Biden’s political beliefs. Which is OK, b/c Zack Carter of the Huffington Post provides a useful primer for all of us. The takeaway?:
In more than four decades of public service, Biden has enthusiastically championed policies favored by financial elites, forging alliances with Wall Street and the political right to notch legislative victories that ran counter to the populist ideas that now animate his party. If he declares for the presidency, Biden will face a Democratic electorate that has moved on from his brand of politics.
Biden enthusiastically embraced corporate opposition to antitrust efforts:
But Kennedy almost immediately ran into problems with Biden. When Coca-Cola urged Congress to exempt the soft drink industry from these antitrust regulations, Biden joined Republicans to pass such a bill over the objections of Kennedy and Department of Justice antitrust expert Ky Ewing, who concluded that the bill was “special interest legislation” with “no evidence” to support it.
Antitrust law was an early salvo in what became a quarter-century struggle to shift the Democratic Party’s base of support away from organized labor toward large corporations. The Biden-Kennedy split carried symbolic connotations beyond the policy implications of their individual votes. Where Kennedy wanted to use the Judiciary Committee to continue the old New Deal-era attack on corporate power, Biden became an advocate for corporate interests that had previously been associated with the Republican Party.
Biden embraced Reaganism more than some Republicans:
He voted for a landmark Reagan tax bill that slashed the top income tax rate from 70 percent to 50 percent and exempted many wealthy families from the estate tax on unearned inheritances, a measure that cost the federal government an estimated $83 billion in annual revenue. He then called for a spending freeze on Social Security in order to reduce the deficits that tax law helped to create.
“While this program is severe,” Biden said on the Senate floor, “it is the only proposal that will halt the upward spiral of deficits,” which supposedly threatened “an economic and political crisis of extraordinary proportions” within 18 months.
Biden then became a cheerleader for Clinton centrism:
“I was one of those guys in 1987 who tried to run on a platform that Clinton basically ran on in 1992,” Biden told National Journal in 2001. He dismissed criticisms of the Clinton years as empty “class warfare and populism.”
There indeed was class warfare…against the poorer classes. Biden voted for Clinton’s so-called ‘welfare reform’ package. He supported Clinton’s cuts on capital gains from real estate and investments. He, of course, was a leading proponent of banking deregulation, which Clinton also championed in exchange for mega-millions in campaign contributions. And while the article didn’t address it, he chose Big Pharma over health care consumers every chance that he got.
I hope he doesn’t run. If he does, I hope and believe that he will flame out quickly. On merit. Ain’t enough apologies from Workin’ Man Joe to run from his record. Not even if this is his campaign theme, which it should be:
You beat me to it. My headline was going to be, “HuffPo Scores Direct Hit on Easy Target.”
He’s a favorite son here. Certainly he is “likeable”, which frankly, is an essential, though someone like Cruz proves me wrong on that score. But, he’d certainly be a calming influence to rid us of some of the current chaos and shock and awe, not to mention, fascism. So, if he’s successful with the nomination, I’ll support him. But, frankly, I hope he’s not successful.
We need tomorrow thinking and leadership, not yesterday.
Agreed.
Assuming and Considering you all supported and voted for Clinton in 92 and 96 and gore in 2000 I immediataly call for your resignation as contributors to this blog.
Didn’t vote for Clinton in 92 or 96, voted for Gore, who won the popular vote.
Your dipshit approach to argumentation is no different from a right-winger’s. Playing “gotcha” went out of fashion some years ago.
That aside, dipshit, those were different times. What worked then doesn’t work now. You’d better start coming up with better stuff than this or you’ll be put into the Troll file.
Also, you’re way off topic. The topic is the HuffPo article on Joe Biden. Have anything intelligent to add?
I’m aware you like to silence disent like a good socialist but I call you on your sacromouis bullshit because you call for these purity tests which haven’t worked and won’t work. Joe Biden is old, he made mistakes. Obama was also against gay marriage in 2007.
I get that this sites thing is to be edgy and say bat shit stuff which is why you aren’t taking serious anymore but regardless I will call it out
I get that your vocabulary is as deficient as any conservative’s (Sacromouis? Disent? Don’t try playing those in Scrabble)
“these purity tests which haven’t worked and won’t work.”
I’m sorry, but you’ll have to cite when these tests were ever applied so that they failed to work.
“Joe Biden is old, he made mistakes. Obama was also against gay marriage in 2007.”
Joe Biden has made many, many mistakes. That’s the point of the HuffPo article: Often wrong, never in doubt.
“I will call it out”
You’re going to have to call it out a lot more articulately if you want to sit at the smart kids’ table.
“I get that this sites thing is to be edgy and say bat shit stuff which is why you aren’t taking serious anymore”
It was once taken serious? AWESOME!
Listen up – the reason you are here is because you know which way the wind is blowing and are shitting you pants. That much is clear.
‘sacromouis bullshit’. Sacro bleu!
I can’t figure out if it is an act. I think it must be. That’s the charitable view, and I’m all about charity for the needy.
Getting back on topic. Joe Biden on abortion rights:
“When former Vice President Joe Biden was a freshman senator he said in a 1974 interview with Washingtonian that he believed the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling clearing the way for legal first-trimester abortions “went too far,” and that he didn’t “think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.”
“But Biden didn’t limit his anti-abortion views to rhetoric. He also advanced legislation on the subject.
In 1981, for example, Biden proposed the Foreign Assistance Act, which barred U.S. aid from being used for any medical research on abortion. It’s still in effect to this day. He has also voted in support of the Hyde Amendment, which bars federal funding for abortion procedures.”
“Those of us who are opposed to abortion should not be compelled to pay for them,” Biden wrote to a constituent in 1994.
“He also supported former President Ronald Reagan’s “Global Gag Rule,” which prohibits the U.S. funding any nongovernmental organizations that offer or advise on reproductive health care if they also offer abortion. President Trump was quick to revive it in 2017.”
Here’s the article in its entirety:
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/biden-in-74-women-dont-have-sole-right-to-say-what-should-happen-to-their-bodies_n_5c78409ae4b0de0c3fbf2b70
This fucking “Delaware Dude” doesn’t know how to post.
Check out my Rand Paul comment on the other thread.
That’s how you do it. The way you do it makes you sound dumb.
I want Delacrap back. At least he knew how to use the internet.
I’ve never asked for anyone to be blocked. But if you’re as boring as Delaware Dude, you should be blocked. Or at least pistol-whipped within an inch of your life.
Too boring.