While Biden has issued some executive orders improving social and regulatory policies, he has refused to issue many much-needed executive orders. Give him an "I" for incomplete, including on the issue of $1.7 trillion in student loan debt that undermines the economy and burdens 45 million debtors, especially people of color. Biden has not budged, even after non-progressive Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have pressed him to use his executive authority under existing legislation to excuse up to $50,000 in college debt per person.
On the subject of healthcare reform, Biden has long been held back by his allegiance to corporate poweras Rep. Jayapal knows well, since she has tenaciously led the Medicare for All battle in the House. Biden has never disavowed his appalling comment in March 2020 that he might veto Medicare for All if it somehow passed both houses of Congress. During the traumatic 14 months of the pandemic since then, while millions have lost coverage because insurance is tied to employment, Biden's stance hardly improved. Candidate Biden had promised to lower the age of Medicare eligibility from 65 to 60, but even that meager promise has disappeared.
With wealth and income having gushed to the top in recent decades, and especially during COVID, Biden is proposing some tax increases on corporations and the very wealthy -- quite popular with voters -- to pay for infrastructure and social programs. For example, Biden proposes returning the top marginal tax bracket on the richest individuals from 37 percent to merely 39.6 percent, where it was in 2017 before Trump lowered it. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders campaigned on raising the top tax bracket to 52 percent, while AOC called for raising it to 70 percent, a popular approach according to polls. To put this all in perspective: When the U.S. economy and middle class boomed during the 1950s, the top tax bracket was over 90 percent under Republican President Eisenhower.
We have no quarrel with those who seek to inspire optimism among progressives by pointing out that their activism has already achieved some great things. But activism should be grounded in candor and realism about where we are now -- and how far we still need to go.
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