The Broken Promises of Contemporary Neoliberalism - A Year in Review

A look at the abject failure of Biden's first year in office

Introduction

Joe Biden was marketed to the American people as an experienced politician who could curb the devastation of the pandemic, unite the country in a time of extreme polarization, and deliver much needed aid to the public. His campaign was backed by not only the Democratic establishment, but by rehabilitated neocons such as Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger. To any rational human, a candidate garnering support from war criminals would raise red flags but to the average suburban liberal this indicated how dire the situation truly was - if such evil opposed Trump then surely he must have been an exceptionally horrible leader. In reality Trump was a run of the mill Republican: tax cuts for the rich, assaults on press freedoms through the persecution of Julian Assange, and hawkish foreign policy (withdrawal from the JCPOA, intervention in Syria, and support for Riyadh in Yemen). In a stunning admission by Time, there was indeed a conspiracy by political operatives and business elite to oust Trump in favor of Biden to ostensibly “save democracy”. We were promised a return to normalcy and immediate relief. This assertion falls apart with any modicum of scrutiny however, because although Trump was by and large a horrible president, a concerted propaganda campaign led by politicians and business interests to elect their preferred candidate can hardly be described as “democracy in action”. A year later, it is clear that Joe Biden has not only broken several promises - par for the course in US politics - he has accelerated many of Trump’s awful policies while prioritizing granting political favors to high-ranking party officials, certifiable ghouls like Rahm Emanuel and Neera Tanden.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) was his first signature piece of legislation, and many were hopeful that given the overturn of both GA senate seats to cement a Democratic majority in both chambers of Congress that the Democrats had the ammunition they needed to pass a substantial aid package to the American people. The initial deliberations by Congress on the bill already signified a broken promise: only $1400 would be delivered in direct aid (compared to the $1800 delivered by the Trump admin), and the cutoff for receiving partial payment would be reduced from $99,000 (CARES Act) to $80,000 (ARP). The total package size was a mere $1.9T compared to the total $3.1T delivered by the Trump administration over two pieces of legislation.

Biden promised voters $2000 if they elected Jon Ossoff and Rev. Warnock to the legislature and then following his inauguration he argued that since the people had already received $600 from the Trump admin as a “down payment”, the expectation was always that only an extra $1400 would be delivered. The liberal “fact-checking” establishment predictably ran cover for this betrayal and the “vote blue no matter who” sect on Twitter lambasted people for correctly pointing out that in fact, $1400 is not $2000. Alone this would be cause for frustration and criticism, but what elevates this austerity to a reason for outrage is the $750 million sale of Boeing and Raytheon missiles to Saudi Arabia for use in the Yemen civil war (read: Yemeni genocide) and the illegal bombing of Syria a month prior to passing the pitiful aid package. As one Minnesota resident eloquently put it “those bombs are kinda expensive for a dude who owes me $2,000”.

Other provisions such as emergency Medicare for all and a federally recognized $15 minimum wage were struck down by the Senate Parliamentarian, an unelected replaceable official whose judgment is not binding and can be overruled by the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Kamala Harris. Instead the Democrats threw up their hands and said “welp, there’s nothing we can do about that, sorry guys you’ll have to wait till the next bill”. When a similar situation occurred back in the early 21st century with the Bush administration, the Republican party immediately replaced the Parliamentarian with one who wouldn’t object to their legislation. Fucking pathetic.

Rotating Villains and Bipartisan Infrastructure

Following the passage of the ARP the conversation turned to Biden’s two stated legislative goals: an infrastructure bill and a social spending program dubbed Build Back Better - a name recycled from Biden’s chief campaign slogan. The initial figure proposed by Biden was $6T, a figure that would allow for real investments in American infrastructure and social programs. The bills would be split into two parts, the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF) and the Build Back Better act (BBB).

These two bills were to be married together, that is one would not pass without the passage of the other. The BBB plan was the bulk of the spending, as the BIF passed the Senate in August at a price tag of $1T, leaving $5T for investments by the BBB. Enter coal baron Joe Manchin and health insurance industry darling Kyrsten Sinema. Between the two of them they whittled down the original proposed spending of BBB from 5, to 3.5, to 2.2, to 1.9 trillion dollars over the course of just 4 months. The Progressive Caucus, led by Pramila Jayapal, adamantly said that the BIF would not pass the house without the BBB plan passing in the senate. This stance was also abandoned toward the end of the year as the house passed the BIF after passing the BBB and sending it to the senate. With all of their leverage gone, after making numerous concessions to appease the two aforementioned senators, Manchin came out the week before Christmas and flatly stated that he would not vote for the BBB. Biden’s signature social legislation is now dead in the water, while the $1T infrastructure privatization bill will inevitably fuel even more disasters similar to the Texas power grid failures seen earlier this year. The legislative year ended with a defense spending increase to $768.2B for FY2022, representing a $15B increase from FY2021, despite the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Conclusion

There are many other promises that have been broken by the Biden administration. Instead of providing government sponsored healthcare during a pandemic that has now claimed 836,000 American lives, he provided government subsidized COBRA insurance. Instead of cancelling student debt, he is working on restarting student loan payments. Instead of following the science on covid he is allowing the CDC to reduce the symptomatic quarantine period from 10 days to 5 days with zero pushback. He kicked people off of unemployment insurance during a pandemic and then claimed that the reduced number of unemployment claims were a sign that people were going back to work. The stock market continues to soar and is touted as a sign of a booming economy while labor strikes erupt across the country protesting oppressive work conditions.

The promises of neoliberal ideology personified in Joe Biden have never delivered for the working class, so it is no surprise that they have failed for all but the elites in our society. The voters who defend such an ideology do so because they have never experienced a government that truly works in the best interest of the people and they see neoliberalism as preferable to the overt fascistic tendencies of the Republican party. In order to create a true government that works for the people we must not only denounce and oppose overt fascism, we must also actively oppose and criticize the neoliberals whose broken ideology and corrupt proponents consistently usher in dystopian hellscapes for the sake of profit under the guise of freedom.

Thank you for reading and follow me on Twitter @dimonvluka