Jordan Weissman at Slate observes:
Joe Biden may have lucked into the perfect moment to become president of the United States.
It’s not that he’s been dealt an easy hand, exactly. The coronavirus hasn’t disappeared. Vast numbers of Americans remain unemployed. The conservative movement is busily waging a state-by-state war on voting as it embraces an ever-more-explicitly anti-democratic philosophy. There are plenty of epochal challenges that demand a deft response.
But by now, it’s pretty clear that Biden is going benefit mightily from tailwinds that were blowing well before he stepped into office, which could in turn help him achieve the sort of historic presidency he is clearly aiming for.
Take Friday’s big news about the economy: After a winter hibernation, the job market roared to life again in March, as employers hired 916,000 workers, the most since last August. Depending which outlet you read, the numbers crushed, blew past, or just plain old beat analysts’ expectations. The country is still missing some 8.4 million jobs compared to before the crisis, but the recovery seems to be back under way, possibly for good. As Bank of America’s chief economist put it, “The tide is turning.”
Let’s hope. There is much work to be done and still significant political undertow.
Biden’s rescue package may not have turned around the economy all by itself, but his administration’s aggressive stance on vaccine distribution and production increases seems to be wrestling the coronavirus to the ground. That in itself is a figurative shot in the arm to a sick economy.
Just as Trump spent years taking credit for the economic recovery begun under Barack Obama, Biden will receive credit for whatever successful moves Donald Trump’s team of misfits made. Whatever.
“If it weren’t for the sense of urgency created by COVID, and the way it has changed America’s perception of government spending, ” Weissman writes, “it seems unlikely Democratic moderates in Congress would be entertaining anything” as ambitious as Biden’s $2 trillion economic modernization plan. That and polling that shows Americans overwhelmingly behind Biden’s plans.
The fact that the White House treats decarbonizing the economy as equivalent to modernizing national infrastructure make Biden’s vision not just politically but environmentally timely. If he can enact it, decades of waiting his turn to be president could pay off not just for his legacy but for us all.