6 ms·
It's a very tough thing to objectively measure, but one metric we can point to is his ability to push a surprising amount of bipartisan legislation through an i
by babypuncher 2y ago
It's a very tough thing to objectively measure, but one metric we can point to is his ability to push a surprising amount of bipartisan legislation through an incredibly divided congress in just 4 years.
- arp242 2y agoWhat would you say are some of his greatest achievements? Question out of curiosity, not a challenge. I don't follow US politics that closely.
- alephnerd 2y agoIRA (re-industrialized a significant portion of Red states in Power Systems, Battery, and Solar PV manufacturing), CHIPS (bringing back mass semiconductor fabrication with 5 mega fabs and re-introducing packaging and OSAT in the US), Infra Bill/IIJA, and Child Tax Credit during COVID. There's a reason the GOP aren't touching most of the provisions in the first 3 Acts (especially with Vance as Veep). [0][1] Vance is backed by Horowitz and Andreessen, and both heavily benefited from the IRA and CHIPS various provisions (but got hit by the capital gains tax changes that Biden proposed a couple months ago [2]). The biggest issue was the Biden admin's inability to promote the impact of all of these. Biden hasn't been campaigning across America as much as his predecessors. [0] - https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-industrial-policy/ https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-industrial-p... [1] - https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-us-trade-policy/ https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-us-trade-pol... [2] - https://a16z.com/the-little-tech-agenda/ https://a16z.com/the-little-tech-agenda/
- jjtheblunt 2y agosome have a delay until the benefits are evident, too, and a delay longer than roughly a half an election cycle makes them perhaps semi invisible?
- alephnerd 2y agoYou can still campaign during a groundbreaking. The issue was Biden was over-managed because of his reputation of "Bidenisms" for which he has been mocked about for decades [0][1] This meant he kept campaigning to a minimum and was extremely managed. It kept gaffes to a minimum but also severely decreased his media time. [0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-unspools-an-endless-supply-of-biden-isms-on-the-campaign-trail/2020/01/24/475033b4-3eba-11ea-b90d-5652806c3b3a_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-unspools-a... [1] - https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/joe-biden-bidenisms-103689/ https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/02/joe-biden-bi...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- js2 2y agoFord is building a battery plant in Stanton TN based on grants from the IRA and Biden administration, creating thousands of jobs in a county that has been in economic decline for 30 years. But none of the folks working those jobs have any idea where those jobs came from. They just credit Ford: > MADLAND: Yeah, I talked to a lot of workers on the site, and this is this very large facility in rural Tennessee, a couple hours outside of Memphis. It's going to be a big electric vehicle battery and manufacturing construction in an area that had for 20, 30 years, really tried to spur investment, and nothing had happened. [...] So these big steps forward in their lives that you can see from these projects, which are good union jobs, constructing the big facility. Then when I also spoke to them and said, well, how or why do you think this project came to be? This project received many billions of dollars in loans from the federal government as part of these investments we're talking about. It also received significant state funding. And the workers to unanimously said, Well, I credit Ford, which is the big Ford Motor Company as a joint investment there. And then I would probe and push and they'd say, Well, I also credit my union for helping make this happen. I had to keep asking and asking before ever mention any elected officials that had anything to do with it. But their sentiment was, well, if any, elected official had anything to do with it. So I would like that and support them, but I have no idea about this. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-ford-ev-battery-plant-funding-biden-green-technology/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-ford-ev-battery-plan... https://apnews.com/article/ford-electric-vehicles-battery-tennessee-kentucky-531ded8784a0c64cf3f780bcd232879a https://apnews.com/article/ford-electric-vehicles-battery-te... https://www.npr.org/transcripts/g-s1-9460 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/g-s1-9460
- riku_iki 2y agoIts easy to create spending bills with 1.7T annual budget deficit, harder to understand if there will be positive ROI from these spendings.
- alephnerd 2y agoI can safely speak for myself - the fund I was employed at had began rebalancing away from Cybersecurity and Biotech and funding Hardware, Energy Tech, and Defense Tech around 22-23 due to provisions in IRA and CHIPS. Plenty of peer funds did the same thing. Even if Trump wins in November, most of the provisions in the acts I mentioned will be retained, especially given that a Thiel and A16Z acolyte is Veep and an early MS alum is cabinet track.
- riku_iki 2y agorebelancing funds don't guarantee future successful and competitive products
- alephnerd 2y agoBefore 2022 we weren't even entertaining the option of funding an early stage startup in the Hardware, Energy, or Defense space. This is a MASSIVE change in the VC/PE industry which has concentrated on various flavors of SaaS for the past decade+. An entire ecosystem of research grants, commercialization grants, and private sector deal flow has now restarted in the sectors above that hasn't been seen in the past decade.
- riku_iki 2y agoI absolutely sure if there is few T of free money there will be "MASSIVE ecosystem of research grants, commercialization grants, and private sector deal flow". But I believe in market economy, and to me it looks like VC/PE didn't invest into hardware much because didn't believe in positive ROI in current condition.
- 2y ago
- lamp_book 2y agoInflation Reduction Act is one of the big ones.
- skellington 2y ago[flagged]
- gregable 2y agoIt was a massive climate change investment.
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoRemind Americans their climate change is better when they are paying at the grocery store. Edit: Yea. That’s what I thought.
- dadjoker 2y agoYou say that like it’s a good thing.
- justinhj 2y agoDid the climate stop changing?
- dham 2y agoThe only thing that's going to solve climate change is technology. It's the same technology we've had since the 50's. Not turning off our lights, setting the AC to 80, drinking through paper straws, or clearing thousands of acres for solar panels.
- margalabargala 2y agoAssuming you're talking about nuclear, why do you think it would be cheaper/faster/easier/etc to decarbonize with nuclear than with solar + battery?
- woodruffw 2y agoJust off the top of my head: CHIPS, American Rescue Plan, IIJA, Inflation Reduction Act. Those were all just the 117th Congress.
- threatofrain 2y agoIs that Biden or effective cooperation in the Senate & House of Reps, including across-the-aisle deals? I always wondered about the degree to which WH coordination played into this.
- woodruffw 2y agoYou can cut it any number of ways: the CHIPS act has existed in some form or another since 2019, but it only gained legislative momentum when Biden threw the weight of the executive branch behind it. The IRA was probably going to happen in some form, but the concrete scope and priorities listed in it come directly from Biden's legislative agenda[1]. TL;DR: 100% credit? Of course not. But has Biden's administration been more effective at advancing its policies through the legislative than the previous administration? IMO yes. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Build_Back_Better_Plan
- ProjectArcturis 2y agoI don't think it's a coincidence that the two presidents in modern history who were most effective at passing major legislation (Biden and LBJ) had spent decades in the Senate.
- gumby 2y agoThe fact of repeatedly managing to get cooperation out of a divided congress was one of his superpowers.
- throwawaymaths 2y agoRemoved troops from Afghanistan (though Trump gets half credit for that one too, it was his timetable and his plan that Biden executed -- poorly -- though that's likely due to soft revolt on the part of the military leaders) Surviving four years without starting a new boots on ground war (also Trump gets credit for that) Calling out china on its bs (also Trump gets credit for that) In practical terms the big differentiating factor between Biden and Trump terms is that trump is soft-pro-putin and Biden is anti-putin. And trump freed some black prisoners who probably shouldn't be in jail anymore Moving forward, Biden is likely to be pro-taiwan and trump has been making anti-taiwan rhetoric
- SV_BubbleTime 2y agoI’m impressed at what column you put Afghanistan.
- throwawaymaths 2y agoAnything that reduces the US imperial footprint is great. Afghanistan is one of many stains on the legacy of American history
- rubytubido 2y ago> Surviving four years without starting a new boots on ground war Such a good way to avoid Israel and Ukraine which were proudly escalated. Modern politics is such a hole - we are praising a politician for not starting a war. > Calling out china on its bs What does it mean?
- verdverm 2y agoCalling out the Russian invasion before it happened and bringing allies together in the days after. Slava Ukraine
- analogwzrd 2y agoI obviously haven't read all the bills that were passed (ha!), but my impression is that many of the bills are just spending money - which is always popular with both parties. I don't get the sense that there was a lot of policy reform going on. And an issue with just spending money is that we have to wait a year or two to figure out if the spent money was effective (unlikely?).
- dehrmann 2y ago> many of the bills are just spending money And continuing the trade war. Then people act surprised when inflation is high. Recently, I think Jay Powell has even called out congress and the president for continuing to spend.
- woodruffw 2y agoSpending money is a key "lever" in legislative action. You can't legislate something without allocating money for its implementation and enforcement. In terms of core policy reform beneath all of the money spending: the current administration seems to place much greater emphasis on capital projects (repairing and building new infrastructure, including energy infrastructure) than the previous one did.
- arrosenberg 2y agoThere was also the comprehensive, bipartisan immigration reform bill that Trump tanked because it would make other people look good.
- newfriend 2y agoAre we calling bills endorsed by a single Republican "bipartisan" now? Also this so-called immigration bill contained billions for Ukraine, Israel, etc. That along with the fact that most of the bill sought only to facilitate getting more migrants through the system more quickly, and of course the bill was DOA. Saying it was Trump who killed it is just conjecture, and reactions from Senate and House Republicans indicates there was zero support for the bill as written. Interestingly the House passed an immigration bill in 2023 that the Senate never voted on. Along with the removal of all of Trump's border-related executive orders, it indicates that Democrats are not seriously interested in border security.
- sixQuarks 2y agoBipartisan legislation is literally the worst of the worst. When both sides agree on something, you know the citizens are really getting screwed
- nradov 2y agoAnd yet the Congressional leaders who were in the room with Biden say that he was unable to communicate effectively and obviously senile. It's hard to believe that he had anything personally to do with getting legislation through. https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/joe-biden-age-condition-before-election-drop-out-c9fc46ef?st=ytiur9incyieu8i&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/joe-biden-age-conditi...