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Biden did sign the bill, which sucks. But the only way it got to his desk was that 42 Republican Senators and 1 Democratic Senator (Manchin) voted for it. The P

• somenameforme 4y ago
  One major difference between the president and congress is that there is no posturing or "optics." Imagine all 100 senators want to pass a bill because it benefits their "donors", but it's something that society at large would oppose. They can, and do, then strategically organize the vote such that some figure around 50 will vote against it, prioritized by factors like how near their next election is, whether they plan to run again, and how close their elections are. So when Joe Senator votes against (and, to a much lesser degree, for) something you can't ever really be sure they really do oppose/support it. The TPP was one of the most exceptionally visible examples of this with overt bipartisan strategizing against the voter. By contrast when Joe President signs a bill (or vetoes) it you have 100% certainty that it's his "real" agenda, because that is the ultimate and deciding "vote" excepting the increasingly rare scenario of a congressional veto override. Put more succinctly, in our original hypothetical changing out those 50 senators who voted for the unpopular bill would have literally 0 impact on its passage. Yet changing the 1 president would. Even if congress might have the ability to override his veto of it, they would be unlikely to do so for an unpopular bill. In reality the bill would never be voted on unless the congress knew the president was on board.