Joe Biden has always been famous for his gaffes (and handsiness), but nothing approaches the level of mistakes he's making at the policy level as he sells himself to voters.
First priority as president? Taking away Americans' tax cuts. He actually said so at a so-called "Poor People's Forum" in pricey Washington, D.C.
Here's the Daily Caller's report:
After one attendee asked Biden how he would combat the "lie of scarcity" regarding resources, Biden insisted there is "plenty of money" in the U.S. and vowed to obtain some of it through repealing tax cuts."Number one, we have the greatest income inequity in the history of the United States of America since 1902, and the fact of the matter is, there is plenty, plenty of money to go around," Biden replied. "The first thing I would do as president is eliminate the president's tax cut."
He's not about expanding the pie, see, least of all for poor people, to alleviate their poverty. With a loony stance like this, he's about creating more poor people, hiking everyone's taxes, taking away people's tax cuts, the better to hire more bureaucrats to "serve" them. That's what tax hikes amount to. The Caller notes that President Trump's tax cuts have helped 65% of Americans directly, but we can add that it's probably a lot more than that, given that long sidelined workers are now finding jobs as a result of companies (and the rich people who own companies) having more money to hire people. Tax "the rich," and watch those jobs go with them. More taxes mean less private sector, and with that, fewer jobs. But cheer up: the welfare shovelings will substitute.
Notice Biden's belief that money grows on trees: "There is plenty, plenty of money to go around." Hugo Chávez thought so, too. "Gradually, then suddenly," as Ernest Hemingway described bankruptcy. Biden wouldn't have any idea about this; for him, there's always a China deal to keep it plentiful for himself.
Yes, it's stupid. But good luck arguing with Biden about how money works. What's even more stupid is that the impact of such statements is likely to go over like a lead balloon with strapped voters who don't live like Old Joe and don't have "plenty of" money raining from trees.
Combine this with his other policy proposals and a low-energy, shuffling-through-it campaign, and we are looking at a loser.
Take a look at the priority he threw out there last week, noted with some appalled feeling by Michael Barone:
That issue, dear to his heart, is passenger rail. During his 36 years in the Senate he commuted almost every day to his home in Delaware on Amtrak, a 75-minute commute each way these days on the Acela. This enabled him when first elected to help raise his two sons after his first wife and daughter were killed in an auto accident a month after he was elected. Over many years it enabled him to keep in closer touch with constituents than almost any other senator.
It gets worse, with Barone writing:
It's hard to overstate how wacky an idea this is. We already have "affordable access" through commercial airlines and interstate highways and, at distances above 300 miles, high-speed rail can't compete on travel time with airlines and on costs with automobiles. Among all of the world's much-praised high-speed rail lines, only the 300-mile- long Tokyo-Osaka Shinkansen and Paris-Lyon TGV have been profitable.Given the fiasco of California's now canceled high-speed line and the longstanding failure to upgrade the Acela line up to Shinkansen/TGV standards, it's lunacy to envision — and start paying for — a 3,000-mile coast-to-coast passenger rail line.Anyone want to ask Biden about this?
So we've got tax hikes. And California-style high-speed rail, taken to a national scale. Both of these ideas have been massive failures in practice. And speaking of failures, we have Joe promising to "cure cancer," as I noted here, following decades of not curing anything while situated on government cancer panels.
Combine all of these policy proposals, failures every time they're ever tried (especially with him in the picture), and Biden thinks people are going to want to vote for him.
Maybe some are. But it's no wonder that Elizabeth Warren is creeping up on him. Her policy proposals tend to be trust-us-the-government, but at least she doesn't go all in for visibly failed ideas.
Combine these failed ideas with Biden's shuffling, sleepy, low-energy campaign performance, and it looks as if Democrats are offering up to voters a lemon, an absolute recipe for failure. Some of the top dogs among the Democratic leadership must know this and will probably secretly move to edge Sleepy Joe out, just as they moved to sideline Bernie Sanders until their emails got leaked. No wonder Republicans are now on the lookout for Warren, who, while she has a raft of weaknesses of her own, is not like Biden in the emerging regard: she's not making it easy for them.
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