Is Biden Too Old to Run Again?

To the Editor:

Re “Biden’s a Great President Who Shouldn’t Run Again,” by Michelle Goldberg (column, Feb. 7):

Ms. Goldberg regrettably parrots the age prejudice coming from the right and, more slyly, from the left. Our culture values a package’s wrappings over its contents, and this is at play here.

If we had not begun to confuse Hollywood entertainment with Washington governance decades ago, we would prize the elusive attributes of “character” and “wisdom” and “experience” and vote accordingly, regardless of age.

We have been fortunate to have Joe Biden at the helm at this time of multiple threats: war, climate, Covid, the economy, Donald Trump’s weakening of our governmental institutions. Mr. Biden’s political instincts have re-established our stature on the world stage, an enormous feat that insular Americans ought to credit and applaud.

Who has both the domestic and international savvy of Mr. Biden at this critical juncture? I do not believe that we should elect someone to the presidency in 2024 who has to learn on the job.

Americans tend to embrace change for change’s sake. We need to resist this tendency and instead choose substance and experience.

Dorothy Nelson
New Orleans

To the Editor:

I am 84 years old. I think President Biden is an excellent president, but I do not want him to run for re-election. If he does, I will vote for a younger candidate in the primary.

There is a time, a season, for everything. There is a time when those of us who are old should step aside to allow our younger colleagues to step up. We can still give our opinions on public policy, but we should retire from active duty.

Please, President Biden, do not run for re-election.

Priscilla Alexander
New York

To the Editor:

Michelle Goldberg writes, “In some ways, the more sympathetic you are to Biden, the harder it can be to watch him stumble over his words, a tendency that can’t be entirely explained by his stutter.”

As a lifelong stutterer I can say that stuttering is more than just struggling with awkward syllables. Those of us so afflicted can often find our mouths saying things that our brain is not totally connected with. Stumbling over words can be entirely explained by stuttering.

Jerome Freedman
Burlington, Mass.

To the Editor:

I agree with Michelle Goldberg that President Biden has had a many great accomplishments as president but that his age should preclude him from running again, as supported by common sense and polling. The problem is finding an electable alternative.

Ms. Goldberg says the Democrats have a “deep bench” but offers only Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who has a limited national profile, and Senator Raphael Warnock, who has been a senator for only two years and only narrowly beat the very flawed candidate Herschel Walker.

However, very experienced candidates can be found in the U.S. Senate. Such a list would include Cory Booker, Sherrod Brown, Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen and Sheldon Whitehouse. I don’t understand why they don’t get more mention as possible great successors to Mr. Biden.

Richard Goetz
Delray Beach, Fla.

To the Editor:

A president’s legacy is a precious commodity. President Biden could be the rare one-termer who is looked back upon with affection and admiration. However, his apparent inability to recognize, in Michelle Goldberg’s words, that “the time has come for a valediction” doesn’t mean that Democrats must sit on their hands.

A primary challenge by one of the 2020 Democratic presidential hopefuls could test the proposition that competing against the incumbent for the 2024 nomination would be a bad thing for the party or the country.

Someone like Senator Amy Klobuchar, for example, could mount a positive challenge that extols the accomplishments of President Biden’s first term (successes for which she can share claim) without explicitly calling into question his competence or fitness for a second term. Her focus in the Senate on the enforcement and enhancement of antitrust law offers the potential to draw a distinction with Republicans’ deference to big business while building on Mr. Biden’s long commitment to organized labor.

The numbers do not lie. Americans are dissatisfied with the political status quo and ready for a change. A challenge to President Biden could address this discontent without dismissing the accomplishments of the man who has led the country so ably during difficult times.

After a career in public service that has spanned nearly 50 years, I say, let the Biden legacy begin.

Rob Abbot
Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.

What to Do About America’s Huge Deficit

To the Editor:

Re “The Answer to America’s Debt Problem,” by Binyamin Appelbaum (Opinion, Jan. 28):

Tax increases as a strategy for deficit reduction would be dead on arrival.

Mr. Applebaum rightly identifies the federal deficit as a serious problem facing our country. However, offering tax increases as the silver fiscal bullet is impractical.

Politics is the art of the possible. With Republicans controlling one branch of government, any deficit strategy that relies on tax increases is D.O.A.

What can be done instead? Start by strengthening the pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules to make sure future tax cuts and/or increased spending are paid for. Simultaneously, require Congress to adopt a “real” budget, as state and local governments do — one that includes entitlements and multiyear appropriations, not mainly discretionary expenditures.

Facilitating comparisons of budget estimates to actual fiscal performance would, at the very least, hold our federal officials accountable for unrealistic projections.

Nothing can alter the course of a Congress intent on runaway spending. But prescribing measures that fly in the face of political reality without offering more practical alternatives only undermines the public’s understanding of the nation’s significant long-term fiscal challenges.

Michael Granof
Martin J. Luby
Austin, Texas
Mr. Granof is emeritus professor of accounting at the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Luby is the associate dean and an associate professor at the L.B.J. School of Public Affairs at the university.

To the Editor:

I count nobody as being serious about the deficit unless they are willing to look at both sides of the ledger: expenses and revenue. Yes, we spend too much and no doubt some of it unwisely and unnecessarily.

But we are also not serious about the revenue issues — failing to collect taxes owed under current law, and countenancing a tax code that only the very wealthy can appreciate, beginning with the failure of Congress to repeal the egregious “carried interest” loophole.

If average Americans could truly wrap their heads around this particular abuse, they would be furious.

Peter D. Nalle
Philadelphia

The Purpose of Taxes

To the Editor:

Re “Biden Urges G.O.P. to Work With Him to Build Economy” (front page, Feb. 8):

As a Democrat and a liberal, I strongly believe that the government has a role in improving people’s lives and that business entities have obligations to society as well as to their owners. Nevertheless, I regard President Biden’s proposal in his State of the Union address to raise the taxes on corporations’ purchases of their own stock as misguided.

These taxes are intended to deter stock buybacks and instead promote investment in new ventures. But in a capitalist society the purpose of tax laws should be to raise revenue, and they should be judged by their fairness and efficacy in doing so. Taxes should not be used to encourage or discourage specific business decisions within the purview of corporate boards.

Alma Suzin Flesch
New York

Talking to the Police

To the Editor:

In “Alec Baldwin Didn’t Have to Talk to the Police. Neither Do You” (column, Jan. 26), Farhad Manjoo raises an issue faced by many caught up in an unexpected, often emotionally charged moment.

As a criminal investigator over a 35-year career, I have seen how remaining silent cuts both ways. Your right to remain silent is uncontested, but the police may be and often are much more interested in you as a result.

The innocent should never put themselves in this position. What’s the harm in waiting for an attorney? If it’s your real estate or tax attorney whose criminal law knowledge is drawn from “Law & Order” reruns, you’re in trouble. And as the column suggests, you might inadvertently admit some wrongdoing.

Richard Friedman
Pittsburgh