Despite his hardscrabble upbringing, Joe Biden is often justly criticized for putting credit card companies’ interests in front of the interests of consumers. Biden is praised for spearheading the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA), but he is just as often pilloried for his work on the United States Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, where he has perpetuated several layers of insanity in the failed and inhumane War on Drugs. Biden is almost solely responsible for the fact that Robert Bork is not currently a member of the Supreme Court, but he gets less praise for that than he gets criticism for allowing Clarence Thomas to get through his committee.
Biden’s record is complex and it isn’t easy to define him ideologically. But, by background and temperament, he seems a good fit for the job of defending the middle class. That is what Obama has tasked him to do, and that is what Biden writes about in today’s USA Today. Specifically…
Right now, our most urgent task is to stabilize our nation’s economy and put it back on track. That is what our economic recovery package moving through the Congress is all about. We need to make these critical investments to jump-start our economy.
On top of this urgent task, though, we have an important long-term task as well. Once this economy starts growing again, we need to make sure the benefits of that growth reach the people responsible for it. We can’t stand by and watch as that narrow sliver of the top of the income scale wins a bigger piece of the pie — while everyone else gets a smaller and smaller slice.
One of the things that makes this task force distinctive is it brings together — in one place — those agencies that have the most impact on the well-being of the middle class in our country. We’ll be looking at everything from access to college and training with the Department of Education, to business development with the Department of Commerce, to child care reform with Health and Human Services, to labor law with the Department of Labor. With this task force, we’ll have a single, high-visibility group with one goal: to raise the living standards of middle-class families.
Over the upcoming months, we will focus on answering those concerns that matter most to families. What can we do to make retirement more secure? How can we make child and elder care more affordable? How do we improve workplace safety? How are we going to get the cost of college within reach? What can we do to help weary parents juggle work and family? And, above all else, what are the jobs of the future? Here, we’ll be looking at green jobs, better-paying jobs, better-quality jobs.
This seems like something Joe Biden can do and do well. And it will keep him busy so that maybe he won’t have time to come up with any more harebrained schemes to carve up Iraq into pieces.
Joe biden is the most visible target for the bankruptcy bill, but it’s a little unfair (and yes i know how frequently I’ve torn him a new fartlocker for his vote).
The DemocRAT who deserves the blame is Tom Carper, who was a co-sponsor. Biden voted for it, but this baby belongs to Tom carper and his GOP BFF Chuck Grassley.
Tom Carper is worse than Lieberman by a mile when it comes to his voting record. But Tom Carper doesn’t go on television and bash Democrats. That’s the big difference between them.
true. that’s how tommy boy keeps his seat, by doing the corporation’s bidding and lying low. i think you wrote a piece about him a few months back. or maybe we talked about it at DL.
of Biden’s record that certainly don’t thrill. However, it’s notable that his chief economist is liberal Jared Bernstein. Much of that Biden is saying these days sounds a lot like Bernstein.
Joe’s always lived in the kind of world that Colbert/O’Reilly/Dobbs live in: where history is a feeling of how it SHOULD have been and quoting un-founded or ‘guestimated’ statistics is just a ‘style’ point – who’s got the time to be accurate when it feels right?
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pol that spends more time in the gaffe/retraction cycle than Joe (I would say Bush II or Quayle, but they didn’t typically retract).
While he’s a decent fellow, the fact is that he just wings it far too often, even when conditions require much deeper contemplation.
I still find him very entertaining and think he was an excellent VP choice: he could become President and do the job (a good thing), but no one wants him too (a very good thing).
Obama said that he would select a VP that challenged his thinking and preconceived notions, and Biden is the perfect yang to Obama’s yin. Obama, the contemplative and professorial sort, coupled with Joe the Senator whose modus operandi can be summed up by “Ready! Fire! Aim!” They complete each other, and with Big O as the head I believe they’re about as close to perfection as we’ll see in this lifetime.
Well put.
I’m still not sure that there is much signal in Biden’s noise to qualify as a full complement to Obama, but point taken. If a rash decision has to be made, at least we’ve got a pro on the team.
Either way, the nicest part is seeing a Vice President who operates within the limits of the position.
..I think we’ll be seeing a LOT more of Obama’s ‘Down, boy!’ scowl.
Hell, I’m even MORE filterless, off my rocker and beholden to credit card companies…
Perhaps I have a future in politics afterall.
I agree – Obama will have that “Down, boy!” scowl perfected by 2016. What I’m really waiting to see – and I know it’ll be a minute – is when he releases Joey to tear the GOP a new sphincter. That’ll probably be in 2012, but it’ll be fun to watch whenever it happens.
Biden will have a different constituency in this job, so he will hopefully distance himself from the bank/finance industry he feared to alienate as senator. This seems like exactly the right job for him.
However, it does again raise the “dynasty” issue: if his kid, as expected, runs for his old Senate seat, will Biden be tempted to go soft on the creditcos/banks so they don’t give all their money to said kid’s opposition? I’m not guessing it will happen, but the situation does again illustrate the pitfalls of keeping it in the family.
No worries – Obama could raise $20 mil for the kid in a weekend…
Biden has a lot of cred when it comes to blue collar issues and foreign policy. I just don’t think he is as clean as people want to believe. He has been playing games with the bankruptcy court in DE. Just check into EToys. Lots of cozy backroom stuff going around down there with US Trustees, US Attorneys, and the whole bankruptcy bar. That is the place with the most incorporated businesses in the US and the most failures. The money involved is astronomical.
Championing the middle class is the euphemism that the Democrats adopted for abandoning the poor. Ignoring social justice. And turning their backs on human rights and civil liberties.
Let’s talk about the $3-billion in police pork for Byrne Grants in the stimulus package. That will stimulate increasing the number of poor people in prisons, out of the work force and off the voter rolls while stimulating more police and prison guard union jobs that pay big dues that then go to the Democratic Party.
Hell, even Bush tried to kill the Byrne Grant program but tough on crime(the poor) Democrats like Joe Biden, just said no.