A Response to 47 Months vs 47 Years. . .

Since I saw the above meme it has bothered me. Intuitively, I just felt it wrong. It took awhile but what follows is in part an attempt to flesh out what that initial intuitive response, an unpacking of it. In short I go after two themes: That Biden, as a Senator and then as Vice President, did what was needed, and that the person or in this case the meme asking such questions has chosen to ignore history or simply does not know the history.

In the 90s? Biden was involved in the infamous crime bill, which he acknowledges was flawed, but crime stopped. The federal budget was balanced. The Soviet Union disappeared, Russia re-emerged, and NATO expanded. Biden in the Senate was involved with all of this.

In 2000 Y2K happens and we have 911. Sadly, we start the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. We put together the Department of Homeland Security, and we restructure our intelligence services. We rebuild NYC. Biden again in the Senate played a role here.

Then we have the Wall Street Crash in 2007. In the Senate, he helped structure the bailouts of automakers and other. Then as VP he continued that project, getting the economy back on track.

And then we have healthcare which was finally passed in 2010, after 60+ years of discussion. Finally. Biden certainly played a role in all of that. Sadly that bill also gave the Republicans the Congress and little else was legislated. That said it was Biden that pushed for same sex marriage in the Obama Administration.

To ask why Biden did not do in all his years what is on his agenda today is to ask an absurd question. What is on his agenda, what is on our agenda today, was in the past often not doable, and / or was not desired.

The answer to the question of why someone did not do yesterday what he wants to do today is simply that it was not on the to-do list yesterday. Again, the question ignores what was desired, and what could and could not be done.