President Biden had a strategy for selling a massive spending package billed as an economic boost amid the pandemic, but he is quickly being reminded what often happens to presidents’ best-laid plans.
The White House was clear about wanting to brag about Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus spending package, historic in both its breadth and price tag. But team Biden’s intention to control the spending package’s messaging has, so far, not been enough to keep the focus on that measure as the longtime Washington veteran is reminded just how many issues can land on any president’s desk.
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Now, instead of hearing about Biden’s spending package, voters’ and the news media’s attention is split between the thousands of unaccompanied migrant children flocking to the southern border and Biden’s likely unsuccessful attempts to push a possible gun control bill on Capitol Hill.
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Biden is getting a firsthand look at the juggling act required of all presidents. And it is a performance on which all commanders in chief are judged, according to Bert Johnson, a politics professor at Middlebury College.
“The nature of the modern presidency is that there’s a crisis around every corner,” he told the Washington Examiner. “You can start the day with a plan, and suddenly, something happens that disrupts it in unexpected ways.”
Biden started his “Help is Here” tour last week with a low-key event at a Pennsylvania flooring company to promote small-business provisions tucked into the spending package. But a higher-profile car rally planned for Georgia last Friday to highlight his $1,400 stimulus checks was canned after a shooting spree targeting Atlanta-area spas killed eight people, the majority of whom were Asian American women.
Then, his Tuesday visit to Ohio, another trip to a pivotal battleground state, was upended the night before by a second shooting, this time in Boulder, Colorado. There, a 21-year-old man opened fire in a supermarket, killing 10 people, including a police officer, before some flags lowered to half-staff to honor the Atlanta victims had been raised.
For Johnson, Biden has to deal with “crises and tragedy,” but he also has to learn how to fold in “a consistent message and agenda” as he does.
“The goal is to be like a sailor with eyes on a specific bearing: buffeted by gusts but tending toward the same point on the distant horizon,” Johnson said. “Biden probably understands this as well as anyone, considering his experience in Washington — but understanding and accomplishment are two different things.”
Biden’s strategy behind touting the spending package was grounded in lessons from former President Barack Obama’s first term, during which he was vice president. Congressional Democrats were punished during the 2010 midterm elections, Biden argued then and now, because the Obama administration didn’t take a “victory lap” after its own 2009 spending package addressing the Great Recession.
A decade ago, Obama contended there was not enough time to gloat about a legislative triumph. The country was facing too many issues, he said, moving on to housing initiatives. And Biden, try as he might, is encountering similar problems.
But Christian Grose, a politics expert at the University of Southern California, pushed back on the tactic. Achievements and events “in closer proximity” to the midterm elections cycle would be more influential on persuadable voters, despite the scope of Biden’s spending package, Grose said.
“What will happen in 2022 is going to be determined more about what happens in the future and not what has been accomplished already,” he went on. “How the president and Congress respond to unexpected, and often bad, events will shape what happens in future elections as much as legislation passed early in 2021.”
The shootings have shed new light on Biden’s gun control inaction, a growing frustration for activists.
When asked why Biden has not introduced gun control reforms, given it was among his “day one” promises, White House press secretary Jen Psaki has simply reiterated Biden is “personally committed” to the policy area.
After House Democrats this month passed two bills tightening background check laws, Psaki would not publicly comment on if or how the administration might be lobbying Senate Republicans to support the measures. And then, en route to Columbus, Ohio, Psaki told reporters Tuesday Biden had “a number of levers” for gun control and community violence more broadly if the Senate cannot reach a consensus, even executive action.
“There’s an ongoing process, and I think we feel we have to work on multiple levels at the same time,” she said on Air Force One.
Simultaneously, data suggests more than 15,000 unaccompanied migrant children will cross the border in March. The surge down south has strained federal government resources, necessitating the Dallas Convention Center to be transformed into a shelter for asylum-seeking teenagers. Meanwhile, Biden and his aides decline to call the situation a “crisis.” Officials are attempting to process migrant minors while sending families and individuals home due to the pandemic.
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Biden’s spending package, though, does remain popular when he is able to speak about it. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told lawmakers Tuesday payments estimated to be worth $90 million had already been directed to eligible people or households.
