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      Biden Weighs State of the Union Focus on His Unfinished Agenda

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      As the president prepares for his national address, his aides debate an emphasis on his still-unrealized plans for child care, prekindergarten and more.WASHINGTON — President Biden’s top economic aides have battled for weeks over a key decision for his State of the Union address on Tuesday: how much to talk about child care, prekindergarten, paid leave and other new spending proposals that the president failed to secure in the flurry of economic legislation he signed in his first two years in office.Some advisers have pushed for Mr. Biden to spend relatively little time on those efforts, even though he is set to again propose them in detail in the budget blueprint he will release in March. They want the president to continue championing the spending he did sign into law, like investments in infrastructure like roads and water pipes, and advanced manufacturing industries like semiconductors, while positioning him as a bipartisan bridge-builder on critical issues for the middle class.Other aides want Mr. Biden to spend significant time in the speech on an issue set that could form the core of his likely re-election pitch to key swing voters, particularly women. Polls by liberal groups suggest such a focus, on helping working families afford care for their children and aging parents, could prove a winning campaign message.The debate is one of many taking place inside the administration as Mr. Biden tries to determine which issues to focus on in a speech that carries extra importance this year. It will be Mr. Biden’s first address to the new Republican majority in the House, which has effectively slammed the brakes on his legislative agenda for the next two years. And it could be a preview for the themes Mr. Biden would stress on the 2024 campaign trail should he run for a second term.Administration officials caution that Mr. Biden has not finalized his strategy. A White House official said Friday that the president was preparing to tout his economic record and his full vision for the economy.The Biden PresidencyHere’s where the president stands as the third year of his term begins.State of the Union: President Biden will deliver his second State of the Union speech on Feb. 7, at a time when he faces an aggressive House controlled by Republicans and a special counsel investigation into the possible mishandling of classified information.Chief of Staff: Mr. Biden named Jeffrey D. Zients, his former coronavirus response coordinator, as his next chief of staff. Mr. Zients replaces Ron Klain, who has run the White House since the president took office.Economic Aide Steps Down: Brian Deese, who played a pivotal role in negotiating economic legislation Mr. Biden signed in his first two years in office, is leaving his position as the president’s top economic adviser.Eyeing 2024: Mr. Biden has been assailing House Republicans over their tax and spending plans, including potential changes to Social Security and Medicare, as he ramps up for what is likely to be a run for re-election.Few of Mr. Biden’s advisers expect Congress to act in the next two years on paid leave, an enhanced tax credit for parents, expanded support for caregivers for disabled and older Americans or expanded access to affordable child care. All were centerpieces of the $1.8 trillion American Families Plan Mr. Biden announced in the first months of his administration. Mr. Biden proposes to offset those and other proposals with tax increases on high earners and corporations.Earlier this week, Mr. Biden hinted that he may be preparing to pour more attention on those so-called “care economy” proposals, which he and his economic team say would help alleviate problems that crimp family budgets and block would-be workers from looking for jobs.At a White House event celebrating the 30th anniversary of a law that mandated certain workers be allowed to take unpaid medical leave, Mr. Biden ticked through his administration’s efforts to invest in a variety of care programs in the last two years, while acknowledging failure to pass federally mandated paid leave and other larger programs.Mr. Biden said he remained committed to “passing a national program of paid leave and medical leave.”“And, by the way, American workers deserve paid sick days as well,” he said. “Paid sick days. Look, I’ve called on Congress to act, and I’ll continue fighting.”.css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.For Mr. Biden, continuing to call for new spending initiatives aimed at lower- and middle-income workers would draw a clear contrast with the still-nascent field of Republicans seeking the White House in 2024. It would cheer some outside advocacy groups that have pushed him to renew his focus on programs that would particularly aid women and children.The State of the Union speech “presents the president with a rare opportunity to take a victory lap and, simultaneously, advance his agenda,” the advocacy group First Focus on Children said in a news release this week. “All to the benefit of children.”The efforts could also address what Mr. Biden’s advisers have identified as a lingering source of weakness in the recovery from the pandemic recession: high costs of caregiving, which are blocking Americans from looking for work. The nonprofit group ReadyNation estimates in a new report that child care challenges cost American families $78 billion a year and employers another $23 billion.“Among prime-age people not working in the United States, roughly half of them list care responsibilities as the main reason for not participating in the labor force,” Heather Boushey, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told reporters this week. She noted that the jobs rebound has lagged in care industries like nursing homes and day care centers.“These remain economic challenges and addressing them could go a long ways towards supporting our nation’s labor supply,” she said.But focusing on that unfinished economic work could conflict with Mr. Biden’s repeated efforts this year to portray the economy as strong and position him as a president who reached across the aisle to secure big new investments that are lifting growth and job creation. On Friday, the president celebrated news that the economy created 517,000 jobs in January, in a brief speech that did not mention the challenges facing caregivers.Calling for vast new spending programs also risks further antagonizing House conservatives, who have made government spending their first large fight with the president. Republicans have threatened to allow the United States to fall into an economically catastrophic default on government debt by not raising the federal borrowing limit, unless Mr. Biden agrees to sharp cuts in existing spending.“Revenue into the government has never been higher,” Speaker Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, told reporters on Thursday, a day after he met with Mr. Biden at the White House to discuss fiscal issues and the debt limit. “It’s the highest revenue we’ve ever seen in. So it’s not a revenue problem. It’s a spending problem.”Catie Edmondson More

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      Speaker, Speaker, What Do You See? I See MAGA Looking at Me.

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      Bret Stephens: Gail, remember “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” the unforgettable Lionel Shriver novel about a woman whose son murders his classmates? Maybe someone should write the sequel: “We Need to Talk About What They Did to Kevin.”Gail Collins: A book-length disquisition on Kevin McCarthy, Bret? I dunno. Always thought his strongest suit was that he was too boring to hate. But now that he’s apparently promised the Republican right wing everything but permission to bring pet ocelots to the House floor, I can see it.Bret: Too boring to hate or too pathetic to despise? I’ve begun to think of McCarthy almost as a literary archetype, like one of those figures in a Joseph Conrad novel whose follies make them weak and whose weakness leads them to folly.Gail: Love your literary allusions. But let’s pretend you’re in charge of the Republican Party — tell me what you think of him in general.Bret: A few honorable exceptions aside, the G.O.P. is basically split between reptiles and invertebrates. McCarthy is the ultimate invertebrate. He went to Mar-a-Lago just a short while after Jan. 6 to kiss the ring of the guy who incited the mob that, by McCarthy’s own admission, wanted to kill him. He hated Liz Cheney because of her backbone. But he quailed before Marjorie Taylor Greene because she has a forked tongue. He gave away the powers and prerogatives of the office of speaker in order to gain the office, which is like a slug abandoning its shell and thinking it won’t be stepped on. A better man would have told the Freedom Caucus holdouts to shove it. Instead, as a friend of mine put it, McCarthy decided to become the squeaker of the House.Gail: OK, Kevin is House squeaker forever.Bret: If there’s a silver lining here, it’s that the whole spectacle has shown voters what they get for voting for this Republican Party.Gail: Hey, you’re still in charge of Republicans. Now that they’re sort of in command, do you have hopes they’ll make progress on your priorities, like controlling government spending? Without, um, failing to make the nation’s debt payments ….Bret: Buried in the noise about McCarthy’s humiliation is that his opponents had some reasonable demands. One of them was to give members of Congress a minimum of 72 hours to read the legislation they were voting on. Another was to limit bills to a single subject. The idea is to do away with the everything-but-the-kitchen-sink spending packages that Congress has lately become way too fond of.Gail: Yeah, I can buy into that one.Bret: On the other hand, the idea that this Republican clown show is going to accomplish anything significant — particularly since doing so would require them to work with a Democratic president and Senate — is roughly the equivalent of Vladimir Putin leaving the vocation of vile despot to become a … cannabis entrepreneur. Not going to happen.So what do Democrats do?Gail: Well, one plus is that we don’t have to worry about the Republican House passing some terrible, nutty legislation since the Senate is there to put a halt to it. Interesting how much better obstruction looks when your party is doing the obstructing ….Bret: It’s almost — almost — enough to be grateful to people like Herschel Walker and Blake Masters for being such deliriously awful candidates.Gail: When it comes to positive action, like keeping the government running, I’d like to think the moderate Dems and the moderate Republicans could get together and come to some agreement on the basics. Do you think there’s a chance?Bret: What was the name of that Bret Easton Ellis novel? “Less Than Zero.” Bipartisanship became a four-letter word for most Republicans sometime around 2012. If we can avoid another useless government shutdown, I’ll consider it a minor miracle.On the other hand, all this is good for Democrats. In our last conversation, I predicted that McCarthy wouldn’t win the speakership and that Joe Biden would decide against a second term. I was wrong on the first. Now I’m beginning to think I was also wrong on the second, in part because Republicans are in such manifest disarray. What is your spidey sense telling you?Gail: Yeah, Biden knows 80 is old for another run, but the chance to take on Donald Trump again is probably going to be irresistible.Bret: Assuming it’s going to be Trump, which, increasingly, I doubt.Gail: You really think it’s going to be Ron DeSantis? My theory is that if the field opens up at all, there’ll be a swarm of Republican hopefuls, dividing the Trump opposition.Bret: It’ll be DeSantis or you can serve me a platter of crow. Never mind that Trump still managed to seal the deal for McCarthy’s speakership by winning over a few of the last holdouts. It still took him 15 ballots.Gail: But about Biden — if he did drop out, Democrats would have to figure out what to do about Kamala Harris. A woman, a minority, with the classic presidential training job. Yet a lot of people haven’t found her all that impressive as a potential leader.My vote would be for him to announce he’s not running instantly, and let all the other potential heirs go for it.Bret: How do you solve a problem like Kamala? My initial hope was that she’d grow into the job. That hasn’t seemed to happen. My second hope was that Biden would give her a task in which she’d shine. Didn’t happen either. My third hope was that Biden would ask her to fill Stephen Breyer’s seat on the Supreme Court and then nominate Gina Raimondo or Pete Buttigieg to the vice presidency, setting either of them up to be the front-runner in ’24 or ’28. Whoops again. Now Dems are saddled with their own version of Dan Quayle, minus the gravitas.Gail: Not fair to compare her to Dan Quayle. But otherwise OK with your plan. Go on.Bret: I also think Biden should announce he isn’t going to run, both on account of his age and the prospect of running against someone like DeSantis. But the argument is harder to make given the midterm results, Republican chaos, the sense that he’s defied the skeptics to pass a lot of legislation and the increasingly likely prospect that Ukraine will prevail over Russia this year and give him a truly historic geopolitical win.I just hope that if he does run, he switches veeps. It would … reassure the nation.Gail: So happy to hear you’re on a Biden fan track. Does that apply to his new plan for the Mexican border, too?Bret: Not a Biden fan, exactly, though I do root for a successful presidency on general principle. As for the border plan, the good news is that he finally seems to be recognizing the scale of the problem and promising tougher enforcement. It’s also good that he’s doing more for political refugees from oppressive countries like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela.Gail: And next …Bret: The right step now is to start pushing for realistic bipartisan immigration reform that gives Republicans more money for border wall construction and security in exchange for automatic citizenship for Dreamers, an expanded and renewable guest-worker visa that helps bring undocumented workers out of the shadows and a big increase in the “extraordinary ability” EB-1 visas for our future Andy Groves and Albert Einsteins. What do you think?Gail: I was waiting for you to get to the border wall itself, which we disagree about. Terrible symbol, awful to try to maintain and not always effective.Bret: All true, except that it paves the way for a good legislative compromise and can save lives if it deters dangerous border crossings.Gail: Moneywise, the border states deserve increased federal aid to handle their challenges. A good chunk should go to early childhood education, which would not only help the new arrivals but also local children born into non-English-speaking families.The aid should also go to states like New York that are getting busloads of new immigrants — some from those Arizona and Texas busing plots, but a good number just because they’re the newcomers’ choice destination.I believe there was a bipartisan plan hatched in the House that included citizenship for Dreamers — an obvious reform that, amazingly, we haven’t yet achieved. But bipartisan plans aren’t doing real well right now.Bret: It’s still worth a shot. I’m sorry Biden didn’t invest the kind of political capital into immigration reform that he did into the infrastructure and climate change bills. And if Republicans wind up voting down funding for a border wall out of spite for Dreamers, I can’t see how that helps Republicans or hurts Democrats. Supporting them seems like smart politics at the very minimum.Before we go, Gail, one more point of note: We just passed the second anniversary of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol. I was happy to see Biden honor the heroes of that day at a White House ceremony. Also happy to see the Justice Department continue to prosecute hundreds of cases. And appalled to watch Brazil’s right-wing loons try to imitate the Jan. 6 insurrectionists by storming their own parliament. Any suggestions for going forward?Gail: Well, what we really need to see is an effort by Republicans, some of whom were endangered themselves during the attack, but virtually none of whom have shown any interest in revisiting that awful moment — only one member of the party showed up for that ceremony.Now that Kevin McCarthy has his job in hand, let’s see him call for a bipartisan committee to come up with some suggestions. Ha ha ha.Sorry — don’t want to end on a snippy note.Bret: Not snippy at all. Truthful. We could start by requiring a civics course for all incoming members of Congress. Maybe some of them might learn that their first duty is to the Constitution, not to themselves.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      We Are Very Far From Turning the Page on Trump

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      It’s often said that hindsight is 20/20. As far as politics goes, I’ve never believed it. Much punditry relies on what I’ve come to think of as the counterfactual fallacy. It goes like this: The party in power did X rather than Y. X didn’t work out as well as Democrats or Republicans hoped. They clearly should have done Y.We only get to run the tape once. We can never know if different decisions would have nudged us toward a better world or returned yet worse outcomes. But elections force an assessment of how the party in power has performed, despite the unknowability of other paths. And so, with Election Day nearing and voting underway all over America, I’ve been trying to work through my own answer to the question: How well did the Democrats do with the power they had, given the constraints they faced?I find it useful to think back to the three interlocking promises Democrats ran on. First and foremost, they ran on bringing competent, concerned governance to Covid. Second, they ran on a Franklin Roosevelt-size legislative agenda, believing this a Great Depression-like moment of rupture that demanded a new vision of what the state could and must do. And they ran vowing to restore the soul of America, to reestablish a civic promise and communal decency that Donald Trump and the Republican Party never understood and regularly betrayed.The Covid record is more mixed than I wish. Judged by what was promised in 2020, the Biden administration made remarkable strides. About 80 percent of Americans have had at least one vaccination, and anyone, anywhere in the country, can get shots and boosters with little effort and at no cost. Rapid tests rolled out slowly, but they are here now, and for a while the government would send them, free, to your door. The U.S. government bought up more Paxlovid than any other country in the world, and it is now widely available. Masks are cheap and plentiful.But judging by what was possible by 2022, even four of President Biden’s former Covid advisers wrote in The Times that they “are deeply dismayed by what has been left undone.” The shift from emergency response to a new architecture for preparedness never came. At-home testing was never integrated into any kind of collective policy or even data reporting system. The funding for the government to provide tests directly lapsed, with little protest from the White House. Wastewater monitoring “remains limited, uncoordinated and insufficiently standardized for a robust national surveillance system,” Biden’s former advisers wrote. So much more could have been done to improve indoor air quality and to make it clear which buildings meet the higher standards.After I criticized the Biden administration for failing to build on the successes of the Operation Warp Speed program, I heard from its Covid coordinator, Ashish Jha, that the White House was pushing Congress for $8 billion to create a Warp Speed-like program called Covid Shield for next-generation vaccines. But that push was quiet, and the administration committed itself to a bipartisan path that never opened. When Congress failed to provide the money, the administration never went public, much less turned to hardball measures. Biden could have refused to sign spending bills that didn’t include the Covid preparedness money he sought. Democrats should have made this a must-pass provision of the Inflation Reduction Act; as the past few years have proved, little is worse for inflation than a raging pandemic.The White House understands all of this. Jha is out there, even now, raising the alarm that current treatments are losing efficacy and future variants might evade them more easily. “Lack of congressional funding has made it difficult for us to replenish our medicine cabinet,” he said on Wednesday. “Because of a lack of congressional funding, the medicine cabinet has actually shrunk, and that does put vulnerable people at risk.” Republicans deserve scorn for refusing to fund pandemic preparedness. But Democrats deserve blame for letting it sink to one priority among many.To be fair, there’s been much else on the Democrats’ agenda. The central tension of Biden’s legislative strategy is that it paired ambitions of astonishing scale with congressional majorities that barely existed. The Senate, in a technical sense, saw no majority at all: It’s a 50-50 split, and Democrats carry votes only because Vice President Kamala Harris has the constitutional authority to break ties. It is remarkable how much Democrats have done, even so.There were two sides to Biden’s long-term agenda: construction and care. The construction side — decarbonizing the country, building and repairing infrastructure, and investing in semiconductor production and scientific research — largely passed. And much of what passed is thrilling.Trump was much mocked for infrastructure weeks that almost never resulted in new infrastructure. Biden and the Democrats have set the conditions for an infrastructure decade that could transform what America makes and how it’s made. And to my surprise, Biden has put invention at the center of his policymaking, and while we cannot yet know what fruits that will bear, it may prove his most lasting legacy.But the care side of Biden’s agenda — universal pre-K, the expanded child tax credit, subsidies for child and elder care, paid leave — collapsed almost entirely (the sole exception being an increase to the subsidies under Obamacare). Was that inevitable?This is murky territory, given the contradictory accounts that Biden and Senator Joe Manchin have given of their negotiations. Was there truly a $1.8 trillion Build Back Better package that Manchin would have voted for? The Biden team thought they had a deal. Manchin says they never did. And at the end of the day, no one forced Manchin to decide child care wasn’t worth doing and child poverty wasn’t worth reducing. That so many in the Senate care so much for bridges and so little for bodies is a scandal.Still, if you’d told me in 2020 that the next Democratic president would have a 50-50 Senate, with Manchin as the hinge vote, and a House margin of just a handful of members, I would not have predicted that the Democrats could pass more than $400 billion in climate investments or significant corporate tax increases or the most important infusion of cash and capital into scientific research in a generation.Three criticisms are worth airing. One is that Democrats could have gotten more of the care agenda passed by refusing to allow a separate vote on the infrastructure bill. The Biden administration believes now, and believed then, that it didn’t have the votes to tie the two together. That strategy ran an unacceptable risk of nothing passing. Given that Manchin proved perfectly willing to kill huge swaths of Biden’s agenda and let the administration twist in the wind for month after month, I suspect they’re right. But there’s no way to truly know.Another is that the American Rescue Plan was too large, and however well meaning the intentions behind it were, it was a handmaiden to inflation. I think the Biden administration erred on the right side of the ledger here. Unemployment is 3.5 percent. Workers got raises and stimulus checks. Poverty fell — sharply. The unemployed weren’t forced into indigency. All of this is easy to dismiss now, but none of it was guaranteed. And with inflation running at 10 percent in Germany and Britain and 7 percent in Canada, I’m skeptical of explanations that make one piece of legislation passed in one country too central to the story.I think the case is stronger that the Fed should’ve raised interest rates earlier and that Biden and the Democrats should’ve undershot economic support in the teeth of a pandemic that had frozen the global economy. Perhaps the rescue plan should’ve been built with more automatic stabilizers so aid rose as unemployment rose and vanished more quickly if it fell. But that’s true in every economic downturn, and for reasons I don’t fully understand, Congress refuses to learn that lesson.That leaves a criticism that I think is fairer: The Biden administration and congressional Democrats have had a the-more-the-merrier approach to every piece of legislation they’ve pushed. One reason the expanded child tax credit expired quickly was that the rescue plan was stuffed with so many policies, all of which needed funding. One reason Build Back Better was hard to defend was that so much was jammed into the package that the main thing anyone knew about it was its $3.5 trillion price tag. The push for a package of democracy reforms was similarly unfocused. It included virtually everything anyone who was worried about voting rights or campaign financing could think of and yet would have done little to block the kind of electoral subversion that Trump and his supporters attempted in 2020 and appear to be gathering forces to attempt again in 2024.Even when cornered, the Democrats kept trying to resist prioritization: Manchin said at the time that the White House lost his vote on Build Back Better by trying to keep the package intact and simply letting the policies expire earlier, in the hopes that they’d be extended en masse. He saw it as a gimmick that brought down the bill’s price tag without bringing down its long-term cost, and he abandoned the process.Whether that’s truly what motivated Manchin is debatable. What’s not debatable is that Democrats ran a very loose policy process. Compared with past administrations and Congresses I’ve covered, it felt as if Democratic leaders said yes to almost everything. Perhaps Democrats simply did not want to negotiate among themselves, knowing that Manchin or Senator Kyrsten Sinema or the Republicans would cull on their behalf. But the result was many policies that were poorly or opaquely constructed and packages that were hard to explain or defend.Biden always framed 2020 as a fight for America’s soul, not just its steering wheel. This is harder to assess. I’ve never believed he thought he could knit together a divided nation. He’s an optimist but not a fantasist. On a more literal level, he’s done what he promised — he has run a low-drama, low-scandal White House and comported himself with dignity and grace.But Biden has also run a relatively quiet administration. He gives comparatively few interviews, news conferences and speeches. He has filled the office Trump vacated but not the space Trump took up in the national conversation. I have argued that Biden’s laid-back approach is, in some ways, a strategy: By letting Trump and his successors fill the airwaves, Biden and the Democrats remind their voters what’s at stake. But this strategy runs deep risks. Biden’s low-drama approach to leadership leaves room for Trump’s high-drama antics.Politics has not moved on from Trump, in ways that it might have under a president who created new political cleavages and alignments. Biden has not been a strong enough communicator or presence to make Trump seem irrelevant. To make this more concrete: I wonder whether Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren could have won in 2020. But if one of them had, I suspect politics would have reorganized around their concerns and conflicts and Trump would seem a more passé figure. I worry that Biden thinks too much about America’s soul and not enough about its attention.What can be said, I think, is this: Biden and the Democrats got a lot done, despite very slim majorities. They rolled out vaccines and therapeutics nationwide but we remain far from finishing the job on pandemic preparedness. They have run the government in a dignified, decent way, but we remain far from turning the page on Trump.Next week, I’ll take a closer look at what Republicans are promising to do if they are given the power to do it. Because these elections are more than just a referendum. They are a choice.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      As Midterms Near, Biden Warns Republicans Seek to Dismantle Democratic Legislation

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      The president told MSNBC that G.O.P. lawmakers could undo Democrats’ legislative victories if they regained control of Congress.WASHINGTON — President Biden warned on Friday that Republicans could upend legislative victories achieved under his administration and a Democratic Congress if the G.O.P. were to win control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.“They don’t have a platform other than to tear down what I’ve been able to do, we’ve been able to do.” Mr. Biden told an MSNBC news anchor, according to NBC News. “And I don’t know what they’re for.”He also vowed to veto a federal abortion ban if Republicans regain majorities of Congress and seek to pass such legislation. G.O.P. candidates have sought to avoid the subject as polls show a majority of voters support abortion rights.“The president has to sign it. I’ll veto it,” he said.Democrats pulled out a recent series of legislative victories heading into campaign season, after passing sweeping health, climate and tax legislation earlier this year. Those include an infusion of funding into America’s semiconductor industry to counter China and expanded medical benefits for veterans who were exposed to toxins from burn pits on military bases and a gun safety package.“These last several weeks all I’m doing is saying here’s what we’re for, here’s what they’re for and make a choice and vote,” Biden said in the interview with the MSNBC journalist Jonathan Capehart. “And I think people are going to show up and vote like they did last time.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.Most recently, Mr. Biden vowed to wipe out up to $20,000 in student loan debt, which he touted on the campaign trail on Friday, noting that the program has received 22 million applications since it opened last week.But that plan was dealt a blow with a ruling by an appeals court Friday on a case brought by several Republican-led states. And a number of Republicans in Congress have targeted some of the administration’s key legislative measures..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.Several House Republicans, including the top G.O.P. member of the committee that oversees entitlement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, said they would back repealing the law that reduced prescription drug costs for seniors if their party took control of the House in November.Mr. Biden has previously warned that Republicans pose a threat to Social Security and Medicare, as Democrats paint the fate of America’s social safety net programs as a central campaign issue. He has also promised to continue to push forward on Democratic priorities in the next two years, like codifying abortion rights, strengthening gun control laws and instituting police reform, all measures that would be nonstarters with Republican majorities in the House and Senate.“What do you think they’re going to do?” Mr. Biden said at an event last month, criticizing a plan drafted by Senator Rick Scott, Republican of Florida, that would allow Social Security and Medicare to “sunset” if Congress did not extend the programs with new legislation.In his MSNBC interview, Mr. Biden dismissed polls that showed that the majority of voters disproved of his handling of the economy. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll found Republicans have an edge among likely voters going into November, with many voters citing worries about the economy, an issue on which Republican candidates have heavily campaigned.Mr. Biden has kept a low profile on the campaign trail, choosing to avoid rallies and instead touting his legislative victories in smaller events. He reiterated on Friday to MSNBC that he intends to seek re-election in 2024, though he said he had not made a formal decision. More

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      Biden Promotes Infrastructure Law in Pennsylvania Swing With Fetterman

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      PITTSBURGH — President Biden returned to his home state of Pennsylvania on Thursday to promote the fruits of the infrastructure law that he enacted this year and to make a final push to help Democrats maintain their slim control of the Senate.In traveling to Pennsylvania, Mr. Biden injected himself into one of the most hotly contested elections in the country, the fate of which could determine the prospects of his legislative agenda for the next two years. The backdrop represented a shift in Mr. Biden’s rhetorical approach to the midterm elections, which have focused in recent weeks on preserving abortion rights, Social Security and Medicare.“Instead of infrastructure week, which was a punchline under my predecessor, it’s infrastructure decade,” Mr. Biden said, standing in front of a crane situated next to the partially rebuilt Fern Hollow Bridge, which collapsed in January after years of neglect.Although the event was purported to be about the economy, politics was clearly in the air. Mr. Biden was greeted at the airport by John Fetterman, the lieutenant governor, who is locked in a tight race with Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, to become the state’s next senator.The president opened his remarks by thanking Mr. Fetterman for running and acknowledging his wife.“Gisele, you’re going to be a great, great lady in the Senate,” Mr. Biden said, predicting that Mr. Fetterman would prevail.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.Debates Dwindle: Direct political engagement with voters is waning as candidates surround themselves with their supporters. Nowhere is the trend clearer than on the shrinking debate stage.The Pennsylvania Senate race has grown increasingly contentious during the final stretch. Mr. Fetterman, who suffered a stroke earlier this year, has faced questions from Republicans including his opponent, about his capacity to serve because of lingering health effects. During his recovery, Mr. Fetterman has at times struggled to articulate his thoughts on the campaign trail and has had to read questions on a screen during interviews.At the event with Mr. Biden in Pittsburgh on Thursday, Mr. Fetterman made no public remarks.The Fern Hollow Bridge, where Mr. Biden spoke on Thursday, is symbolic of the creaky state of American infrastructure that the president wants to rehabilitate. As Mr. Biden was preparing to visit the city in January, the thoroughfare crumbled and fell into the ravine below.Funding from the infrastructure law did not go directly to rebuilding the bridge, but Mr. Biden noted that the money allowed the state to fix it more quickly because Pennsylvania’s Transportation Department did not have to divert resources from other projects. The bridge is on track to be rebuilt in less than a year, which is far faster than the two to five years that similar projects might take.“I’m coming back to walk over this sucker,” Mr. Biden said.The president laid out the other ways he said the infrastructure law is helping Pennsylvania, pointing to investments in broadband, electric car chargers and lead pipe replacement. He said that much of the work would be completed using union labor.Mr. Biden, who is expected to return to Pennsylvania next week, acknowledged that he continues to gravitate to the state and to Pittsburgh, where he started his 2020 presidential campaign.“I’m a proud Delawarean, but Pennsylvania is my native state — it’s in my heart,” Mr. Biden said. “I can’t tell you how much it means to be part of rebuilding this beautiful state.”Mr. Biden, who has maintained a low profile on the campaign trail this fall, is also attending a fund-raising reception with Mr. Fetterman in Philadelphia on Thursday evening. They traveled together on Air Force One, along with Senator Bob Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, to make the journey across the state.Before leaving Pittsburgh, Mr. Biden stopped at Primanti Brothers, a local sandwich shop, and ordered the Pitts-burger sandwich, which comes with the French fries on the beef patty. The White House said Mr. Biden left a $40 tip.Speaking with reporters at the sandwich shop, Mr. Biden said that he felt “good” about the upcoming elections and expressed optimism that Democrats could retain control of the Senate.But at the fund-raiser in Philadelphia, Mr. Biden clearly laid out what he believes is at stake next month.“If we do not maintain the Senate and the House in this next election, a lot is going to change,” Mr. Biden said, lacing into “MAGA Republicans” who he warned would get rid of Medicare and Social Security.For his part, Mr. Fetterman said that he wants to be the 51st vote in the Senate and to give Democrats the power to eliminate the filibuster, raise the minimum wage and protect abortion rights that were lost when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.Mr. Fetterman also addressed his health, accusing Dr. Oz of rooting against his recovery from the stroke and mocking him for moving from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to run for office.“In January I’ll be feeling much better, but Dr. Oz will still be a fraud,” Mr. Fetterman said. More

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      Ahead of Midterms, Yellen Embarks on Economic Victory Tour

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      DEARBORN, Mich. — Emerging from months of inflation and recession fears, the Biden administration is pivoting to recast its stewardship of the U.S. economy as a singular achievement. In their pitch to voters, two months before midterm elections determine whether Democrats will maintain full control of Washington, Biden officials are pointing to a postpandemic resurgence of factories and “forgotten” cities.The case was reinforced on Thursday by Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, who laid out the trajectory of President Biden’s economic agenda on the floor of Ford Motor’s electric vehicle factory in Dearborn, Mich. Surrounded by F-150 Lightning trucks, Ms. Yellen described an economy where new infrastructure investments would soon make it easier to produce and move goods around the country, bringing prosperity to places that have been left behind.“We know that a disproportionate share of economic opportunity has been concentrated in major coastal cities,” Ms. Yellen said in a speech. “Investments from the Biden economic plan have already begun shifting this dynamic.”Her comments addressed a U.S. economy that is at a crossroads. Some metrics suggest that a run of the highest inflation in four decades has peaked, but recession fears still loom as the Federal Reserve continues to raise interest rates to contain rising prices. The price of gasoline has been easing in recent weeks, but a European Union embargo on Russian oil that is expected to take effect in December could send prices soaring again, rattling the global economy. Lockdowns in China in response to virus outbreaks continue to weigh on the world’s second-largest economy.In her speech on Thursday, Ms. Yellen said the legislation that Mr. Biden signed this year to promote infrastructure investment, expand the domestic semiconductor industry and support the transition to electric vehicles represented what she called “modern supply-side economics.” Rather than relying on tax cuts and deregulation to spur economic growth, as Republicans espouse, Ms. Yellen contends that investments that make it easier to produce products in the United States will lead to a more broad-based and stable economic expansion. She argued that an expansion of clean energy initiatives was also a matter of national security.“It will put us well on our way toward a future where we depend on the wind, sun and other clean sources for our energy,” Ms. Yellen said as Ford’s electric pickup trucks were assembled around her. “We will rid ourselves from our current dependence on fossil fuels and the whims of autocrats like Putin,” she said, referring to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.The remarks were the first of several that top Biden administration officials and the president himself are planning to make this month as midterm election campaigns around the country enter their final stretch. After months of being on the defensive in the face of criticism from Republicans who say Democrats fueled inflation by overstimulating the economy, the Biden administration is fully embracing the fruits of initiatives such as the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan of 2021, which disbursed $350 billion to states and cities.At the factory, Ms. Yellen met with some of Ford’s top engineers and executives. During her trip to Michigan, she also made stops in Detroit at an East African restaurant, an apparel manufacturer and a coffee shop that received federal stimulus funds. She dined with Detroit’s mayor, Mike Duggan, and Michigan’s lieutenant governor, Garlin Gilchrist.Detroit was awarded $827 million through the relief package and has been spending the money on projects to clean up blighted neighborhoods, expand broadband access and upgrade parks and recreation venues.Although Ms. Yellen is helping to lead what Treasury officials described as a victory lap, some of her top priorities have yet to be addressed..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.The so-called Inflation Reduction Act, which Congress passed last month, did not contain provisions to put the United States in compliance with the global tax agreement that Ms. Yellen brokered last year, which aimed to eliminate corporate tax havens, leaving the deal in limbo. On Thursday, she said she would continue to “advocate for additional reforms of our tax code and the global tax system.”Despite Ms. Yellen’s belief that some of the tariffs that the Trump administration imposed on Chinese imports were not strategic and should be removed, Mr. Biden has yet to roll them back. In her speech, Ms. Yellen accused China of unfairly using its market advantages as leverage against other countries but said maintaining “mutually beneficial trade” was important.Ms. Yellen also made no mention in her speech of Mr. Biden’s recent decision to cancel student loan debt for millions of Americans. She believed the policy, which budget analysts estimate could cost the federal government $300 billion, could fuel inflation.Treasury Department officials said Detroit, the center of the American automobile industry, exemplified how many elements of the Biden administration’s economic agenda are coming together to benefit a place that epitomized the economic carnage of the 2008 financial crisis. Legislation that Democrats passed this year is meant to create new incentives for the purchase of electric vehicles, improve access to microchips that are critical for car manufacturing and smooth out supply chains that have been disrupted during the pandemic.“There will be greater certainty in our increasingly technology-dependent economy,” Ms. Yellen said.But the transition to a postpandemic economy has had its share of turbulence.Ford said last month that it was cutting 3,000 jobs as part of an effort to reduce costs and become more competitive amid the industry’s evolution to electric vehicles. The company also cut nearly 300 workers in April.“People in Michigan can be pretty nervous about the transition to electric vehicles because they actually require by some estimation a lot less labor to assemble because there are fewer parts,” said Gabriel Ehrlich, an economist at the University of Michigan. “There are questions about what does that mean for these jobs.”Republicans in Congress continue to assail the Biden administration’s management of the economy.“Inflation continues to sit at a 40-year high, eating away at paychecks and sending costs through the roof,” Representative Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican, said on Twitter on Thursday. “While in Michigan today, Secretary Yellen should apologize for being so wrong about the inflation-fueling impact of the Biden administration’s runaway spending.”Ms. Yellen will be followed to Michigan next week by Mr. Biden, who will attend Detroit’s annual auto show.The business community in Detroit, noting the magnetism of Michigan’s swing-state status, welcomed the attention.“We’re about as purple as it gets right now,” Sandy K. Baruah, the chief executive of the Detroit Regional Chamber, a business group.Noting the importance of the automobile industry to America’s economy, Mr. Baruah added: “When you think about blue-collar jobs and the transitioning nature of blue-collar jobs, especially in the manufacturing space, Michigan has the perfect optics.” More

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      Maybe Joe Biden Knows Joe Manchin Better Than We Thought

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      Gail Collins: Never really thought I’d be leading off with a toast to Joe Manchin, Bret, but troubled times require low expectations.Bret Stephens: You came around!Gail: Joe came around! Or caved, which sounds a little more satisfying. Of course we’ve still got his Senate colleague Kyrsten Sinema and her tax obsessions to worry about. But if it all comes together this week, we’ll get the big Biden program to battle climate change. Will that make you as happy as it would make me, hmm?Bret: Your happiness sounds like it’s an 8 or a 9 on a 10-point scale, and mine is probably around a 5. The Senate just passed a $280 billion bill to support the semiconductor industry under the guise of standing up to China, which is really just a huge giveaway to Intel and other U.S. chip makers. Now we’re dropping another $369 billion, and a lot of that will be in the form of corporate subsidies for companies like Tesla and General Motors. I know Manchin and Larry Summers are saying this will help bring down inflation. But pumping a lot of money into an economy usually has the opposite effect.On the other hand, it’s a whole lot less than the trillions the administration wanted to spend last year, so I’ll take that as a victory. It might keep the nuclear industry alive, which is also vital if we are serious about tackling climate change, and it might also reduce some of the permitting bottlenecks that get in the way of energy infrastructure. And the two bills are solid legislative wins for President Biden, who really, really needed them.Gail: As did all of us who are still Friends of Biden — although I guess we’d prefer not to be called F.O.B.s.Bret: Shame the news arrives the same week we get the second straight quarter of negative economic growth, which is … not a recession?Gail: I prefer to think of it as an, um, a very relaxed financial time.Bret: Not sure how much it would help Biden if he were to say, “Folks, the economy isn’t stalling. It’s relaxing.” Sorry, go on.Gail: And while of course politics is utterly beside the point — who in the world would worry about the entire makeup of Congress? — this legislation has got to help the Democrats come election time. Lots of good reasons we’re in an economic … slump. But you’ve got to be able to deliver a plan for making things better.One of my favorite parts of the bill is the way it clamps down on pharmaceutical companies. Like giving the government power to negotiate on the prices of some drugs covered by Medicare.Bret: Terrible! Price controls inevitably lead to less innovation, fewer incentives to manufacture generics and biosimilars and crazy distortions as pharmaceutical companies jack up the price of some drugs to make up for lost revenue in others. It’s just as bad an idea as rent control and rent stabilization, which is great for some but distorts the overall market and makes the city more expensive.Gail: Hey, we the taxpayers are funding those drugs and we should get assurance that all our money isn’t going to Big Pharma’s profits.Sorry, go on.Bret: I still don’t see the legislation swinging a lot of votes to the Democrats in the midterms. Biden also got his big infrastructure bill passed last year and it didn’t help him one bit politically. The only thing that can save the Democrats now is Donald Trump and his dumb political endorsements.Gail: Anybody you’re thinking of in particular? For instance, that dweeb Blake Masters in Arizona who we talked about recently? The one who now graciously admits he “went too far” when he wrote a youthful essay implicitly criticizing American involvement in World War II. I believe you said if you were voting in Arizona and Masters won the primary, you’d support the — hehehehe — incumbent Democrat, Mark Kelly.Bret: Yes, reluctantly. As David Sedaris might put it, the choice between Democrats and most Republicans these days is like a choice between a day-old baloney sandwich with a sad little pickle on a stale roll versus a plate of rancid chicken served with a sprinkling of anthrax on a bed of broken glass.I’ll take the sandwich.Gail: Got some other big primaries coming up on Tuesday besides Arizona. I’m sure a lot of Missouri Republicans would be happy to see the end of Eric Greitens, a former governor, who now seems to be fading in his run for the Senate. Can’t imagine why, given that he was forced to resign from office in an ethics crisis that included a mind-boggling sex scandal.Bret: The fact that he was the front-runner, at least until recently, really tells you that the G.O.P. has reached its psychotic stage. To recap, Greitens, a former Rhodes Scholar and Navy SEAL, resigned in disgrace as governor four years ago after barely a year in office. Later, his ex-wife alleged in a sworn affidavit, which Greitens disputes, that he knocked her down and confiscated her cellphone, wallet and keys to keep her and their children prisoner in their home. Also, that he was physically violent toward their 3-year-old son.Gail: Which really should have sealed the deal.Bret: More recently, he filmed an ad that was a live-action fantasy of shooting RINOs — “Republicans in Name Only” — that struck many of us as a pretty open invitation to violence. Even Josh Hawley thinks he’s vile, which is like Nikita Khrushchev taking a strong moral exception to Mao Zedong.Gail: Seems like his fading in the polls shouldn’t require a celebration, but we’ll take what we can get.Bret: As for Masters, his candidacy seems to rest on his promotion of so-called replacement theory.Gail: Yes, the idea that Democrats are encouraging immigration so they can create a minority-majority of voters.Bret: It’s almost amusing, since the most significant replacement to happen in Arizona was the one in which white settlers stole sovereign Mexican territory in an unprovoked invasion and dispossessed Native American tribes.Gail: Bless you.Bret: It’s also a master class in political malpractice, since it only alienates Hispanic voters, who are often fairly conservative and increasingly open to voting for Republicans. Are you feeling optimistic?Gail: Have to admit I’m kinda worried that a lot of liberal voters — particularly the younger ones — are just so appalled by the way things have been going with abortion and guns, and so depressed by the state of the economy, that they’ll just sit this one out.Bret: Yeah, but don’t discount the rancid chicken factor. As in, for instance, the Senate race in Georgia, or the governors’ races in Maryland and Pennsylvania.Gail: Well, just to stick with Georgia for a second, it does seem a guy like Herschel Walker, with a really dreadful performance record as a father, should have tried not to build his campaign around being a family-values candidate.Bret: With luck, maybe after a few losses Republican voters will finally get the message that a Trump endorsement in the primary is the political kiss of death in the general election.Then again, it would also help Democrats if someone cured Biden of his habit of saying things that quickly prove totally wrong. The other day he said there wasn’t going to be a recession. Before that, inflation was “temporary.” Last summer, it was that the Taliban wasn’t going to overrun Kabul. You can almost know what’s coming by expecting the opposite of whatever he predicts. That’s why I’m confident he won’t run for a second term. He keeps insisting that he will.Gail: I still don’t see any point in Biden’s announcing he won’t run this early in the calendar. He should wait until the end of the midterm elections. Then we can all turn our attention to the hordes of would-be successors waving their hands.That’ll still give Democrats a year to check out the options. Don’t you think that’s enough?Bret: If you’re the billionaire governor of Illinois, Jay Pritzker, it doesn’t make that much of a difference, since fund-raising isn’t an issue. Pete Buttigieg can’t be feeling as lucky. But either way I think it would be better for Biden to announce before the midterms. Maybe he will even find it liberating to be a president who can really govern for the rest of his term without the burden of a presumptive campaign and all the nagging questions about it. And it will send the message that he has the grace and wisdom to know it’s time to step aside, which is more than can be said for the Chuck Grassleys and Dianne Feinsteins of politics.Gail: Biden’s political clout, wobbly as it is right now, will vanish completely if he embraces lame-duck-hood. Announcing he’s not running by the end of the year seems a good timetable. But of course actually trying to stay in for another race would be a disaster.Bret: Gail, before we go we should probably mention that we’ll be taking the next two weeks off for travel and family. Any parting suggestions or recommendations for our readers till we reconvene?Gail: Stay cool, read something good — I’ve really been enjoying “A Gentleman in Moscow,” by Amor Towles, a novel about a count who’s trapped in his hotel after the Russian Revolution. That’s one for now, but when we get back, Bret, we’ve got to have that favorite-books conversation we’re always threatening to have.And what’s your tip?Bret: Same. Devote a few weekend mornings to some of the terrific longer pieces in The Times. Start with Alex Vadukul’s devastating, breathtaking portrait of Daniel Auster, Paul Auster’s son. It’s a modern-day “American Tragedy,” worthy of Dreiser. Then get out in the sun and count your life’s blessings. I hope there are many.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      This Presidency Isn’t Turning Out as Planned

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      Joe Biden was Barack Obama’s vice president. His Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, was Obama’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve. The director of Biden’s National Economic Council, Brian Deese, was deputy director of Obama’s National Economic Council. His chief of staff, Ron Klain, was his chief of staff for the first two years of the Obama administration and then Obama’s top Ebola adviser. And so on.The familiar names and faces can obscure how different the new administration, in practice, has become. The problems Biden is facing are an almost perfect inversion of the problems Obama faced. The Obama administration was bedeviled by crises of demand. The Biden administration is struggling with crises of supply.For years, every conversation I had with Obama administration economists was about how to persuade employers to hire and consumers to spend. The 2009 stimulus was too small, and while we avoided a second Great Depression, we sank into an achingly slow recovery. Democrats carried those lessons into the Covid pandemic. They met the crisis with overwhelming fiscal force, joining with the Trump administration to pass the $2.2 trillion CARES Act and then adding the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, the trillion-dollar infrastructure bill and the assorted Build Back Better proposals on top. They made clear that they preferred the risks of a hot economy, like inflation, to the threat of mass joblessness.“We want to get something economists call full employment,” Biden said in May. “Instead of workers competing with each other for jobs that are scarce, we want employers to compete with each other to attract work.”That they have largely succeeded feels like the best-kept secret in Washington. A year ago, forecasters expected unemployment to be nearly 6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2020. Instead, it fell to 3.9 percent in December, driven by the largest one-year drop in unemployment in American history. Wages are high, new businesses are forming at record rates, and poverty has fallen below its prepandemic levels. Since March 2020, Americans saved at least $2 trillion more than expected. And that’s not just a function of the rich getting richer: a JPMorgan Chase analysis found the median household’s checking account balance was 50 percent higher in July 2021 than in the months before the pandemic.It is easy to imagine the wan recovery we could’ve had if the mistakes of 2009 and 2010 had been repeated. Instead, we met the pandemic with tremendous, perhaps excessive, fiscal force. We fought the recession and won. The problems we do have shouldn’t obscure the problems we don’t.But we do have problems. Year-on-year inflation is running at 7 percent, its highest rate in decades, and Omicron has shown that the Biden administration wasted months of possible preparation. It is not to blame for the new variant, but it is to blame for the paucity of tests, effective masks and ventilation upgrades.The conversations I have with the Biden administration’s economists are very different from the conversations I had with the Obama administration’s economists, even when they’re the same people. Now the discussion is all about what the economy can produce and how fast it can be shipped. They need companies to make more goods and make them faster. They need more chips so there can be more cars and computers. They need ports to clear more shipments and Pfizer to make more antiviral pills and shipping companies to hire more truckers and schools to upgrade their ventilation systems.Some of these problems reflect the Biden administration’s successes. (Read my colleague Paul Krugman for more on this.) For all the talk of supply chain crises, many of the delays and shortages reflect unexpectedly strong demand, not a pandemic-induced breakdown in production. Supply chains are built to produce the goods that companies think will be consumed in the future. Expectations were off for 2021, in part because forecasters thought demand would slacken as people lost work and wages, in part because the fiscal response was massively larger than anyone anticipated and in part because when people couldn’t go out for meals and movies, they bought things instead. Overall spending is more or less on its prepandemic trend, but the composition of spending has changed: Americans purchased 18 percent more physical goods in September 2021 than in February 2020.Now the Biden administration fears that its supply problems will wipe out its demand successes. In recent remarks, Biden took aim at those who would lower prices by breaking the buying power of the working class. “If car prices are too high right now, there are two solutions,” Biden said. “You increase the supply of cars by making more of them, or you reduce demand for cars by making Americans poorer. That’s the choice. Believe it or not, there’s a lot of people in the second camp.”He’s right, but this is a practical fight, not just an ideological one, and the Biden administration is making its own mistakes. His administration is suffering right now from directly mismanaging Covid supplies. It did an extraordinary job in its first months, flooding the country with vaccines. Today, any adult who wants one, or three, can get the shots. But vaccines aren’t the only public health tool that matters, and there was every reason to believe the Biden administration knew it. The American Rescue Plan had about $20 billion for vaccine distribution, but it had $50 billion to expand testing and even more than that to retrofit classrooms so teachers and children alike would feel safe. Where did that money go?Getting the pandemic supply chain right would help ease every other supply chain, too. If Americans could move about their lives more confidently, they could buy services instead of things, and if companies could test and protect their work forces more effectively, they could produce and ship more goods.But the Biden administration hasn’t fully embraced its role as an economic planner. When Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, was asked about testing shortages in December, she shot back, “Should we just send one to every American?”Psaki’s snark soon became Biden’s policy. The administration is launching a website where any family can request four free tests. That’s a start, but no more than that. For rapid testing to work, people need to be able to do it constantly. But because the administration didn’t create the supply of tests it needed months ago, there aren’t enough tests for it or anyone else to buy now. Part of this reflects the ongoing failure of the Food and Drug Administration to approve many of the tests already being sold in Europe.The same is true, I’d argue, about masks. There’s simply no reason every American can’t pick up an unlimited supply of N95s and KN95s at every post office, library and D.M.V. Instead, people are buying counterfeit N95s on Amazon and wearing cloth masks that do far less to arrest spread. Now the Biden administration is moving toward supplying masks. But more needs to be done: How about ventilation? How about building the vaccine production capacity needed to vaccinate the world and prevent future strains from emerging? How about building capacity to produce more antiviral pills so that the next effective treatment can ramp up more quickly?For decades, Democrats and Republican administrations alike believed the market would manage supply. We live in the wreckage of that worldview. But it held for so long that the U.S. government has lost both the muscle and the confidence needed to manage supply, at least when it comes to anything other than military spending. So Biden’s task now is clear: to build a government that can create supply, not just demand.This may not be the presidency Biden prepared for, but it’s the one he got.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More