Joe Biden breaks with Obama in moving to left

[Celerity]

Joe Biden is breaking with some of Barack Obama’s policy stances even as he ties himself closely to the former president.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/443951-joe-biden-breaks-with-obama-in-moving-to-left

Biden says he believes there is “an obligation” to provide health insurance for undocumented immigrants. Such coverage wasn’t provided under ObamaCare. The former vice president is backing a $15 minimum wage, much higher than the $10.10 minimum wage advocated by Obama. While some states raised their minimum wages, Obama failed to raise the national minimum wage of $7.25 while in office.

Biden has also endorsed a form of the public option on health care, a proposal that would create a government insurer to compete with private firms. Obama decided against pursuing a public option as part of ObamaCare, but Biden has endorsed the idea of allowing people to buy into Medicare. None of the three examples are dramatic departures from Obama’s policies.

In fact, it’s easy to imagine the former president backing a $15 minimum wage in 2019, or a law allowing people to buy into Medicare. But the shifts are important and notable nonetheless for Biden, who is seeking to craft out an agenda that is his own even as he runs as an Obama-Biden Democrat.

Biden has soared in polls because of the warm feelings many Democratic primary voters have of the Obama years, yet he still needs to carve out his own platform. “Biden and Obama are so connected that the former vice president can afford to demonstrate he’s his own man and not just Obama’s shadow by putting a little but not a lot of distance between the two of them,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon.

Biden also needs to move to the left, though not too far, and in all three cases the breaks with Obama-era policies allowed Biden to shift to a more liberal position. This is important for a candidate who is battling a number of rivals who have embraced more progressive policies.

snip

[LongtimeAZDem]

1. A higher minimum wage and the public option are hardly moves to the left of Obama

What President Obama wanted, and what he could get past an intransigent Congress are quite different.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

2. True, but

it got you and me to click on it.

[LongtimeAZDem]

3. I don't mind that; bogus claims should be refuted.

[Magoo48]

18. A prolonged surge to the left would be extremely refreshing tho.

Well over 50 percent of Americans favor Medicare for all. The number of democrats is, of course, higher. What could compel a candidate to not support such a popular concept?

[crazytown]

4. Obama favored a public option.

What killed it was the election of Scott Brown on January 19, 2009, giving McConnell the 41 votes he needed to kill any changes to the Christmas Eve Bill. The House was then forced to pass exactly the same Bill, I order to get the ACA through in any form.

[groundloop]

16. Joe Lie-berman and a few blue-dogs also helped kill Public Option

I'll never forgive him for that. What we wound up with was an improvement, yet only half way to where we should be.

[crazytown]

19. The Publuc Option could have been included through Reconciliation

but once McConnell got his 41 votes, that route was closed.

Whitehouse: House and Senate will come up with a bill with some sort of Public Option

Lieberman: I hope not.

[SouthernProgressive]

5. Doesn't necessarily look like he is breaking with Obama.

More that he want's to build off of what Obama had started.

Great news!

[yaesu]

6. surprising.

[Hortensis]

7. These are NOT "breaks." Good grief. The Hill

needs its butt kicked down the hill with all this hostile spin.

Btw, who doesn't know that Obama did NOT "decide against pursuing a public option as part of ObamaCare"?

Congressional Democrats wrote and passed that bill. Pelosi was the one person above all in a very large team who is credited with getting almost all important provisions passed against great resistance from within and without our party. But that snake Senator Lieberman threatened to filibuster and kill the entire bill if the public option was left in, and it was set aside to be passed as soon as possible, in the beginning of Hillary's first term if it had to wait until then.

Just one example of the disinfo in this piece.

(Btw, Pelosi had intended to retire in 2016 but stayed on in very large part to try to protect the ACA from Republican destruction. And it survives, not intact but still functioning amazingly well in spite of everything they have done to it.)

[George II]

20. Good points. Learning those fact would be, like, too much work.

[IndyOp]

8. Joe - You're going to have to keep moving left, and then further left, and then more....

The planet is on fire. We need a radical departure from the past - living wage and health care, etc. - will provide stability during a period when people will need a lot of security to be willing to make necessary changes.

[Auggie]

9. NUMBER ONE ISSUE IN SWING STATES: JOBS! And in case you didn't get that ...

JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS, ETC ...

[George II]

10. Not yours, but the headline is an unnecessarily negative spin on Biden "vs." Obama.

[R B Garr]

11. From the article: "None of the three examples are dramatic

departures from Obama’s policies.”

[Celerity]

12. yes, that is why I included that in the excerpt

[samnsara]

13. Obamas hands were tied a lot of the time.. He would have been a LOT more left..

..with a supportive Congress.

[EveHammond13]

14. what is the premise of this article - he should be welded to Obama? I don't get it.

he's running his own race

[pdsimdars]

15. But as with all of them, you have to ask yourself if you believe they'll actually DO what they say

I remember Obama promised to back unions and get that card check, but once elected he never even tried.

[Celerity]

17. If we do not take back the Senate, there will not be shit getting done. I am really starting

to get vexed how many headline candidates are turning down chances to run.

[George II]

22. Really?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employee_Free_Choice_Act

Employee Free Choice Act

President Barack Obama supported the bill. An original co-sponsor of the Employee Free Choice Act, Obama urged his Senate colleagues to pass the bill during a 2007 motion to proceed

In another speech to the AFL-CIO in 2010, Obama vowed to keep fighting for the bill.

[NYMinute]

21. K&R nt

[Honeycombe8]

23. Biden has endorsed people 55+ buying into Medicare. Not everyone.

According to what I've read.

I don't know how we can afford to provide health ins. or care for the millions of undocumented workers, if their employers don't provide it. That would be massively expensive. The ACA was already bending under the weight of the huge claims of those who hadn't been previously insured, and insurers just dropped out of certain areas altogether, while co-ops went belly up.

I'm concerned the candidates are making all sorts of proposals or promises that aren't feasible, even if we had the both houses of Congress. But I guess that's what politicians do.

Trump has promised Louisiana a new I-10 bridge, if the state votes for him. (Never mind that I-10 is interstate, and should be maintained by that supposedly YUGE infrastructure bill that Trump promised in 2016, but never passed, or even pushed.)

[Celerity]

24. Biden calls for everyone having the choice to buy into Medicare

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/441232-biden-calls-for-giving-everyone-the-choice-to-buy-into-medicare

"Whether you're covered through your employer or on your own or not, you all should have a choice to be able to buy into a public option plan for Medicare," Biden said in a speech in Pittsburgh, the first major address of his presidential campaign, which he announced last week.
"Your choice," Biden added. "And if the insurance company isn't doing the right thing by you, you should have another choice."

Limiting it to only 55yo and up is not remotely good enough.

I also agree with Joe on 4 years of free public university for all.

Biden Calls for 4 Years of Free College

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/10/22/biden-calls-for-4-years-of-free-college

"I believe we have to level the playing field for the American people," Biden said. "And that's going to take access to education and opportunity to work."

"We need to commit to 16 years of free public education for all our children," he said, adding two years to the president's previous proposal of free community college for all.

"We all know that 12 years of public education is not enough," Biden continued. "As a nation, let's make the same commitment to a college education today that we made to a high school education a hundred years ago."

[Honeycombe8]

25. I'm glad to hear that.

I don't know where I read that, but I know that I did. Maybe it was a prior position.

Free college? I don't see how we can afford that. And shouldn't the states pony up for that? In Louisiana, the state provides a grant or something tuition, IF you enter college within a year or two after graduating high school. That's a great deal. My extended relative nephew is going to be able to go to go to the local college because of that. The grant pays for a dorm room and other expenses, too.

But I like that he's focusing on that. It's a huge problem and a shame, that a huge wealthy country like the U.S. has millions who can't go to college. What a waste of talent.

[Celerity]

27. TOTAL student debt is 1.6 trillion, we spend that each YEAR on the war/surveillance state

We can easily afford to cover free public tuition for anyone who wants it. I would also place a Tobin tax on financial turnover transactions with a rate of around 0.5 to 1% or so, with a 1 million USD per annum exemption so small investors do not get affected. That would raise hundreds of billions in revenue and also would cut down drastically on the horrific High-Frequency Trading.

[Honeycombe8]

28. It costs a lot more than that, though.

A lot of students get grants. And the other students who would be provided free college (tuition or whatever) who currently pay their own way.

It would be a lot. A whole lot.

I think maybe paying for the first 2 years is more feasible. And then states, in order to get the federal funding they get, would have to contribute to the last 2 years, maybe.

That's in addition to the grant system that currently exists, maybe.

I like the idea of that Tobin tax...as long as there's an exemption for small investors (I'm a retiree, and I have investments in my retirement account...an additional tax would hit me very hard...I'm not wealthy....I'm just an ordinary middle class retired gal who worked in what might be called middle-management). I sacrificed a lot to add to my retirement account over the years. All the vacations I didn't take, the cars I didn't buy...all that is wrapped up in my retirement account.

[Celerity]

29. there are around 13 million public university students (2 and 4 years) in the US

at 10,000 USD per year (which is actually a little more than what it actually is for average tuition overall)

that is only 130 billion per year

we spend 12.3 TIMES MORE on the war/security/surveillance state.

lets say the number of students doubles

its still over 6 times less (260 billion) per year than the 1.6 trillion we spend on the war state

I dont think the number of student would double, but it would go up

say the cost is 200 billion per year

that is ONE PERCENT of our GDP

and surely it would be a HUGE driver of growth and spending and tech increases, wages, quality of life, etc

[Honeycombe8]

30. Okay. If it's doable.

But I don't see a connection between college funding and the security budget or some other budget item.

It's like saying you should give me a much needed $100 for a medical procedure, because, after all, you spend more than that on your mortgage payment.

[Celerity]

32. comparison purposes

to show that the money is there

our war/security state is one of the biggest grifts on the planet

[Demit]

31. That was in 2015. He's dialed that back to 2 years of community college.

That's what he said at his rally at the NH pizza restaurant on Monday, anyway.

[Celerity]

33. do you a link?

extraordinarily disappointing if he is now backsliding

[Demit]

34. It's a C-Span video--

https://www.c-span.org/video/?460665-1/vice-president-joe-biden-makes-campaign-stop-hampshire

He mentioned it in his Dubuque Iowa rally too—
https://www.c-span.org/video/?460257-1/joe-biden-campaigns-dubuque-iowa

I've watched three of his rallies now. The third was the one in Pittsburgh right after he officially entered the race. I believe that's on C-Span too. You should invest some time to watch them. He speaks for about a half hour each time. Everybody should. They are very enlightening.

[Celerity]

35. Thanks!

[Celerity]

36. Finally got around to watching those 2 videos

You, unfortunately, where totally right. He is only saying now making community college free, but not a 4 year degree, and not even the first 2 years of the 4 year degree if those 2 years are not at a junior college. He even claims that this 'cuts the cost of a 4 year degree in half' but that is not entirely true at all.

You would be forced to go to a far less rigorous school (that may not even offer your major) just to get the savings, and IF millions of people did that, then that will strip the actual 4 year (and beyond, ie Masters and PhD-granting ones, etc) schools of massive tuition, which they will in turn make up for by RAISING tuition at those schools for those of us who do not want to go the community college route. Also, the community college infrastructure is simply not equipped to handle a massive influx of millions of new students.

Very disappointed he has backed off his 2015 stance. I truly hope he takes a further look at this. The average total cost of a public 4 year degree (in state) including all tuition, fees, room, board, and supplies is now over $100,000 gross. It has doubled in the last 11 or 12 years, so if that rate of increase continues, then we are looking at $200K total gross cost by 2031 or 2032. An eight year PhD at a top, prestigious private school, in 2031 or 2032, if they have the same rates of increase, will cost around 1.5 million gross when all expenses are included. That is utterly unsustainable.

[Demit]

38. It's been a long time since I went to college, but

I seem to remember it being iffy that a school would even accept all your credits from another school. And, of course, the 4 year institution is going to jack up its rates for community college transferees as well, so whatever kids save in tuition at the 2 year school they'll end up paying at the 4 year one. I'm sure loans will be readily available, tho, and thanks to Biden's work on the 2005 Bankruptcy Bill those kids will be on the hook repaying the loans for a very long time. I'm not much of a Biden fan, maybe you can tell. He talks up being for regular people, but his heart is really with the banks & finance people. Just like Elizabeth Warren said.

What college costs for young people these days makes me very sad for them. My college education was funded almost all with state grants and one VERY low-interest federal loan. Those days are long gone. I pity kids today.

[Celerity]

39. +10000

[BootinUp]

26. I want to call this draining trumps base,

The minimum wage folks in the red states are going to like it.

[Hortensis]

37. RW-serving The Hill and Celerity. I haven't even read

Last edited Thu May 30, 2019, 07:27 PM - Edit history (1)

this, but between those and the title, it'd very strange if this wasn't hostile spin.

Because of course there's no such thing as more than one way of proceeding, with various choices of costs and benefits. Any difference must be a serious ideological "break."

Did it come to blows behind the scenes, do you think? Or just yelling and fractured friendship?