Advance word is that President Biden will offer a whole new agenda in his State of the Union speech Thursday night: A hefty corporate tax hike!
Make billionaires pay to fix Social Security!
Outlaw “shrinkflation!”
All this is meant to amplify his “whose side are you on?” theme and so convince you that he’s on your side while the other guy and his party are out to get you.
And so distract you from the president’s actual, lousy record.
As policy, it’s all poppycock; more on that below.
But even as political theater, it’s pathetic.
Yes, Biden can summon up a façade of passion for whatever his script says; he may even give us his trademark whispered “I mean it” (which inevitably means he doesn’t).
He’s addressed the nation time and again since taking office, offering an ever-changing list of brags, whines and supposed priorities — which always fades to nothing.
Remember his boast that when he’s president, Putin won’t dare act up in Eastern Europe?
His prediction that COVID lockdowns would be done by July 4, 2021?
His insistence that inflation was “transitory”?
His claim that his Afghanistan bugout was a great success?
All his vows to get the border under control?
He puts on the same “decisive leader” front every time, but no actual leadership follows.
And after three years-plus in office, people judge by his results, not his promises.
As for the substance: Shrinkflation is just an annoying form of inflation, which everyone knows is on him.
Tax the rich?
The Trump tax cuts on the rich actually led to high earners forking over a larger share of the tax pie, because they stopped putting as much cash in tax shelters.
And if you whack businesses and investors, you’re slamming the job creators, and so America’s workers.
Does Biden want more people forced onto the dole, or just not care?
As for any threat to Social Security, that comes from the program’s own cockeyed finances; the face of trying to fix that, Rep. Paul Ryan, is long gone from the political scene and Biden’s opponent denounces those efforts as much as any Democrat.
And the billionaires don’t have enough money to cover Social Security’s coming shortfalls, even if you take every dime they’ve got.
Not that there’s any way to write a law that forces them to bail out the trust find, let alone pass it.
Polling may show that these ideas are popular in the abstract — who doesn’t think someone else should pay?
But getting anyone to believe that Biden’s doing anything beyond again mouthing what he thinks people want to hear would require them to forget the last three years.
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