Among Democratic organization politicians to the end Biden was found leaders of the left wing of the group, specified as Senator Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. This is understandable due to the fact that although Biden won the appointment as president in 2020 as a candidate around which the center and left wing of the organization against Sanders and Elizabeth Warren united, his administration took over many of the left-wing policies.
Looking at Biden's nearly 4 years of rule, 1 can even hazard thesis that it was the most left-wing and world-friendly president since Lyndon B. Johnson (1963–1969). Biden, much more than Obama and Carter—not to mention Clinton—was willing to usage the state and the tools it has at its disposal to stimulate economical growth and redistribution of its fruit, stimulate the improvement of circumstantial strategical economical tools, defend American jobs and the standards they apply.
Return of industrial policy
Biden took office in January 2021, erstwhile the American economy was at the tallness of the pandemic and lockdown crisis. The administration's consequence to this situation was a great, nearly $2 trillion stimulus package of the American Rescue Plan, signed by Biden after the immediate completion of the legislature work already in March 2021.
The package included direct benefits for the unemployed and the poorest households and for tiny businesses, especially from the sectors most affected by lockdowns, as restaurants. ASR funds besides went to state and local authorities, supporting targets specified as reopening schools safely or mass vaccination. By the end of 2021, the American economy came out of the hole, unemployment from 6.7 percent fell below 4% and remained at this level until the spring of this year.
The bill adopting the American Rescue Plan was the first of a series of laws adopted at the time of Biden's rule, triggering large funds for investing in the American economy. Another was Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by Biden in November 2021. It spent $1.2 trillion on public investment in infrastructure, mainly transport – roads, bridges, rail safety-related programs – but besides in electricity, fibre optics or waterworks.
More than six months later, in August 2022, Biden signed the Inflation simplification Act. The bill allocated the largest in American past funds to stimulate investments in green transformation, amounting to $369 billion. They are intended to support the production of clean energy and the transition to electrical transport, both by encouraging – through tools specified as taxation incentives and credit guarantees – corporations to invest in these areas and consumers to acquisition electricians alternatively of combustion cars.
The aim of the IRA was to lower energy prices and re-education of emissions – by 2030 they are expected to fall by 40% compared to 2005 levels – but not only. The condition to be able to benefit from IRA guarantees or credit discounts is to place production in the States and apply appropriate professional practices related to workers' rights. The bill is so not only intended to direct the American economy to green tracks, but besides to shorten supply chains and make conditions for rebuilding the US industrial base, returning well-paid jobs in manufacture to the US.
With the IRA, the State is so returning to industrial policy. It is besides part of the CHIPS and discipline Act, besides from 2022, which allocates $280 billion to support production and investigation in the semiconductor area. As in the case of the IRA, the CHIPS and discipline Act is intended to strengthen the US industrial base in a key area of the economy, ensuring that the States keep their lead over China and the "semiconductive independence" of the American economy.
‘Union Joe’
Trade unions were an crucial part of Biden's industrial policy. Between 2021 and 2024, we had a unique partnership between unions and the presidential administration. American union movement historian Erik Loomis rated Biden's achievements in this area over 5 with a minus, paying attention to the many precedents that occurred in those years.
In 2023 Biden was the first American president in past visited employees striker plant – a car mill in Michigan – supporting their demands. "In 2008, you sacrificed a lot to save the car industry, which was then in serious trouble. Today, automotive companies are doing great. And you know what, you should, too. It's a substance of simple integrity. Do not give up, you deserve crucial increases and all the benefits," said Biden.
Earlier, in 2021, Biden encourage Amazon employees in Alabama – deciding in a referendum on the creation of a union – to organise themselves. He said in a video: “I always said that America did not build Wall Street, but a mediate class. And the unions built the mediate class. The unions gave workers power [...]. They gave you voice on issues specified as health, occupational safety, higher wages, protection against racial discrimination or sexual harassment." This was an unprecedented action in the past of the American presidency.
Biden's administration supports the PRO Act – a bill first filed in legislature in 2019 that facilitates workers' unionization and collective negotiations with employers. Unfortunately, in 2021, the bill collapsed in the legislature committee, and work on it in the current legislature continues.
Where decisions belonged to Biden, the presidential administration tried to strengthen trade unions. In 2022 the president issued a regulation ordering the hiring of union workers to work on national infrastructure projects. The administration was besides able to convince pension funds representing public sector workers to include labour rights issues in their investments.
Among the pro-working activities of the Loomis administration are besides changes to the provisions for more favourable to workers, concerning non-competition clauses or overtime.
On the another hand, as the historian points out, Biden's pro-laboural achievements are being shadowed by the usage of the 1926 railway safety regulations to suppress the railway strike, related to work safety issues – which, as the railway crash in Palestine, Ohio, showed, was a real problem. At the same time, the administration was expected to push railway companies to meet any of their employees' demands.
Steps in the right direction
From the standards of European welfare states, it is absurd that a country as rich as the US cannot supply its citizens with universal wellness insurance and free public education. Biden's administration has not solved these problems, but has taken a fewer steps in the right direction.
In addition to incentives for climate investment, the IRA besides included a set of measures to reduce wellness care costs: both wellness insurance and drug prices. Biden's key achievement, which he pointed out in the campaign, was to set the advanced limit on the price of insulin for seniors at $35 a period – it was even 10 times more.
Biden's administration was besides active in reducing student loans. In the United States, debt for higher education is simply a life burden for many. They are frequently highly uninterested, so that after years of payment the majority of the funds go to interest alternatively than to repayment of capital. They are besides not covered by consumer bankruptcy legislation. Biden cancelled nearly 170 billion student debts, benefiting more than 4.75 million people.
A step in the right direction was besides the nomination for Lina Khan's lawyer to chair the national Trade Commission, liable for countering monopolistic practices in the American market. Khan – the youngest individual in this position – adopted a very assertive policy towards the wellness and technological sector.
It's a very solid achievement.
Given that Biden's organization had a tiny majority in legislature only for the first 2 years of the president's word and the dysfunctional polarization of the American political scene, all of this consists of a very solid achievements of the current administration.
While from the point of view of our Biden region, it deserves large respect for its abroad policy towards Russia, NATO and Ukraine, it should besides measure this administration well in interior policy – especially from a left-wing perspective.
At the same time, like the war in Vietnam in the case of Johnson – Biden and the most progressive part of the electorate of democrats divided the policy towards Israel in the context of the war in Gaza. Biden surely underestimated the fact that it would become specified a large interior problem, and with this strategical burden on the US to compete with China and Russia in the countries of the global South, where the issue of Palestine is treated as evidence of double Western standards. Candidate Harris offers the anticipation to restart in this area, to establish a fresh contract with a progressive electorate.
At the same time, with all the drawbacks of this presidency, the American Left has truly not had the same effect on the direction of American politics as in Biden's time.
