Joe Biden Legislative Agenda
After a heady start, Joe Biden’s legislative agenda has hit a wall
Blame factionalism and the filibuster
United States - Jun 13th 2021 - WASHINGTON, DC
AFTER 100 DAYS in office, Joe Biden looked ruthless and Rooseveltian. He had just passed a $1.9trn rescue package despite painfully narrow majorities; his administration was triumphantly preparing future plans to spend trillions more on climate, infrastructure and safety-net expansions. Since then, however, little has happened, and the prognosis looks murky.
When mathematicians confront a system of equations, they sometimes find that there is no solution set—the equations are simply inconsistent and cannot be resolved. The various constraints on governance—Democratic squabbles over the importance of bipartisanship, the brutal mathematics of thin margins, unrelenting opposition from Republicans—are starting to resemble such a system. What seemed merely like a risk at the start of Mr Biden’s term now looks increasingly like reality: the president’s ambitious legislative agenda could be rendered a largely theoretical exercise.
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