Biden's empty promises

I Read Joe Biden's 564 Pages of Empty Promises
So You Don't Have To
By P.J. O'Rourke

Dear reader,

You're welcome. Now I'll tell you what you're thanking me for...

I just read Joe Biden's presidential campaign platform so you don't have to.

If you're thinking, "Thanks anyway, but I'll read it for myself," think again...

Joe has 43 exhaustively detailed platform planks. My print-out totaled 564 pages, and that's not counting the pleas for campaign donations and campaign volunteers tacked onto the end of each document or the full text of "Joe's Leadership During the COVID-19 Pandemic" that sends you down a rabbit hole of links to everything Joe has ever said about the coronavirus.

I burned through an ink cartridge and wasted more than a reforestation's worth of copy paper. (Joe has a plan for reforestation – Joe has a plan for everything.) I used up three pads of Post-It notes, dried out four highlighter pens, and spent three days I'll never get back reading and annotating Joe's platform. In the middle of the second day, I had to lie down in a darkened room with a cold compress on my forehead.

But although Joe has a plan for everything and can't shut up when explaining his plans, he doesn't make it easy to find out exactly what these plans are. (And perhaps that's a wise move for someone trying to attract "Anybody-But-Trump" moderate voters.

If you care to repeat my reading experience, you'll have to go to the "Joe Biden for President: Official Campaign Website" and get past all the pestering for donations and amateurish videos of Joe interacting with highly diverse and moderately enthusiastic supporters until you find the little "Menu" icon among the screen clutter.

Click on that, and you'll be presented with a list of (not very enticing) options. Ignoring "Home," "Joe's Story," "Action Center," "The Latest," "Store," "How to Vote," and "En Español," click on "Joe's Vision." This will take you to "Bold Ideas." Beneath that heading, there's an array of 43 boxes similar to Jeopardy! categories. (And unless you lack any political conservatism whatsoever and are bereft of every libertarian principle, the "jeopardy" comparison is apt.)

What you find when you open the first box sets the tone:

The Biden Plan to Secure Environmental Justice and Equitable Economic Opportunity in a Clean Energy Future... While Rubbing His Tummy and Patting His Head and Spinning a Plate on His Toe

OK, I invented the last part, but you get the general idea. And please excuse me for reprinting (without invention) the exquisitely dull paragraph that follows. It, in turn, sets the tone for how Biden's general ideas are specifically presented.

The current COVID-19 pandemic reminds us how profoundly the energy and environmental policy decisions of the past have failed communities of color – allowing systemic shocks, persistent stressors, and pandemics to disproportionately impact communities of color and low-income communities.

That's Joe telling us what he's going to do about pollution.

His "It's the End of the World – Poor and Minorities Hardest Hit" attitude persists through all 564 pages. So does the pretentious and silly verbiage – "disproportionately impact," "persistent stressors," "systemic shocks," "environmental justice," etc. Every one of the 43 platform planks seems to have been written by perfervid freshmen political-science majors in a dorm room bull session after taking methamphetamine.

To give the briefest of examples, there's this phrase from "The Biden Plan for Combating Coronavirus (COVID-19)": "Stand up a Pandemic Testing Board to massively surge a nationwide campaign..."

The platform planks are numbingly repetitious, full of grammatical errors, and occasionally just stupid. The little Jeopardy box that you open to read Joe's policy prescriptions for increasing the physical safety of women is labeled "The Biden Plan for Violence Against Women."

However, the real problem with Joe's campaign platform is quantitative not qualitative. All presidential candidates make a lot of promises, but there is a point where "a lot" turns into a multitude, a profusion, a passel, a slew, oodles, scads, heaps, piles, and – frankly – a shitload. And then the promises, by dint of sheer number, become lies...

Joe is lying his head off. He promises a carbon-pollution-free power sector by 2035, a net-zero emissions national economy by 2050, and the creation of "millions of jobs producing clean electric power for American families and businesses," presumably by rubbing our socks on the carpet and touching the doorknob.

Plus, Joe promises "decarbonizing the food and agriculture sector." This is strange because I was under the impression that almost all the food we eat comes from carbon-based life forms.

If we have any food to eat... Joe comes very close to promising the nationalization of agriculture with a declaration that new agricultural technologies and seed stocks "should be developed and owned by the American people, not private companies who can use patents to expand profits." And he comes close again in his proposal for "making sure small and medium-sized farms and producers have access to fair markets... and get fair prices." Here come price controls.

Joe promises to create 250,000 jobs plugging abandoned gas and oil wells and reclaiming abandoned mines, part of his promise for "conserving 30% of America's lands and waters by 2030." Quit splashing in that mud puddle, Johnny, it's a national park.

Joe promises 1 million new jobs in the American auto industry, although he also promises to establish "ambitious fuel economy standards," raise the gas tax, build the "cleanest, safest, fastest rail system in the world," and provide public transit for every city with a population of more than 100,000. (Bend, Oregon gets light rail! To take you to – according to Wikipedia – the last remaining officially licensed Blockbuster video store in the world.)

Also, I'm sure the 1 million new auto-industry workers will be interested to hear Joe's lament that "families rely on cars, which can be a big financial burden [and] clog roadways."

Those roadways, Joe promises, will have 500,000 electric-vehicle charging stations. But you won't need them because Joe promises "new highways that can charge electric cars while in transit" (and add a spark to the lives of America's school-crossing guards).

Unfortunately, the highways won't work for Uber drivers... because there won't be any Uber drivers. Joe promises "tough enforcement to end the misclassification of workers as independent contractors" and to make sure that "workers in the 'gig economy'" receive "full benefit packages."

But that's OK... With Joe as president, you won't need to work in the gig economy. You can flip "fair-price" hamburgers (perhaps available with a ration card at the "fair market"). Joe promises to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and index the minimum wage to the local "median hourly wage" and eliminate the "tipped minimum wage" loophole that allows restaurants to hire cheap help. (Yet, somehow, Joe "will also support small businesses like restaurants during this economic crisis.")

Or, with Joe as president, you won't need to work at all... You can go to college. Joe promises that all public colleges and universities will be tuition-free for families with incomes under $125,000. Historically Black colleges, tribal colleges, and "minority serving institutions" will be tuition-free too, and all federal student debt incurred at them will be forgiven.

Two years of community college "or other high-quality training" will be free for everyone. Student loan payments under the Public Service Loan Forgiveness and "income-based repayment" programs will be cut in half. Student debt will be dischargeable by bankruptcy. And "students will be able to use their Pell grants, state aid, and other aid to help them cover expenses beyond tuition and fees." Cue Prince's Little Red Corvette...

Of course, you can't go to college until you've gone to primary school – as soon as you can walk. Joe promises universal pre-K for three- and four-year-olds. And he promises "double the number of psychologists, guidance counselors, nurses, social workers, and other health professionals in our schools." Although whether this is a promise or a threat, I'm not sure. Johnny, if you don't sit down and behave, I'll send you to the "other" health professional.

The school psychologists, anyway, will be busy. In "The Biden Plan for Full Participation and Equality for People with Disabilities," Joe cites "emotional disturbance" as a disability, which will pretty much require one full-time government-funded shrink for every teenager in the nation.

None of these people, however, will have to worry about where they live. Joe promises to "expand housing benefits for first-responders, public school educators, and other public and national service workers." Although, Joe also promises "the mobilization of health care workers nationwide." (Your draft notice is in the mail. And I hope you like your new barracks.)

For second, third, and fourth responders and other such, Joe promises to "spur the construction of 1.5 million sustainable homes and housing units."

Although you may not get to live in them because Joe promises to "increase the number of refugees we welcome into the country" and "welcome immigrants in our communities"... while also making sure "that employers are not taking advantage of immigrant workers" (by, you know, hiring them for jobs that can be done by unskilled people who can't speak English, or something).

But don't worry about having a roof over your head. Joe promises to make "housing a right for all" with "a new Homeowner and Renter Bill of Rights" which will "protect tenants from eviction" and "eliminate exclusionary zoning" (in case you want to start a trailer park in your driveway).

Where you'll be housed is another matter. Joe promises to "ensure growth is shared by communities across the country." Paducah is lovely in the spring. Or you might just wind up on the wrong side of the tracks. Joe promises to alter "local regulations to eliminate sprawl and allow for denser, more affordable housing near public transit."

Wherever you wind up, you'll have "universal, reliable, affordable, and high-speed Internet," Joe promises.

So you'll be fine... Unless, of course, you try to make money. Joe promises to "keep well-off business owners from using any program to unjustly enrich themselves." And if you've already unjustly enriched yourself, don't go trying to save and invest that money. Joe promises to close "loopholes in our tax system that reward wealth, not work." He promises he'll be "getting rid of capital gains tax loopholes" and will "restore the 39.6% top tax rate" and raise the cap on Social Security taxes while he's at it. Joe promises "common-sense tax reforms that finally make sure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share." You probably didn't even know you were a wealthy American – but you'll find out that you are... if Joe keeps his promises.

Which, with the unfortunate exception of the tax increases, he cannot conceivably do. I have, so far, barely skimmed the flotsam and jetsam from the surface of the ocean of promises Joe makes. While navigating, with increasing mal de mer, the bounding main of his campaign platform (soon to fill the recycling bin to its brim), I did my best to keep a list of Joe's promises. That list is 25 pages long.

The promises range from the grandiose and delusive – "Protect and Empower Women Globally" – to the disturbingly picayune – "Create a 'Safer for Shoppers' program that gives compliant businesses a sign for their window."

Some proposals exude a whiff of totalitarianism, such as the promise to "Ensure questions about sexual orientation and gender identity are included in national surveys and data collection efforts... including the decennial Census." While other items on the Biden agenda smell of a total divorce from reality: "smarter cities that can withstand storms, floods, heat, wildfires, sea level rise, and more." Alexa, drain the basement.

Joe makes all the standard-issue liberal promises, of course. He'll lead us, without map or compass (or caveat), into the Green New Deal's impenetrable jungle of policies and endless wilderness of expense.

Joe will provide "a public option health plan" that will cover contraception and abortion, restore federal funding to Planned Parenthood, and "codify Roe v. Wade" into federal law. (But he won't, presumably, go so far as to make having babies illegal.)

Joe will lower the cost of health care insurance for middle-class families, "cutting their premiums almost in half," slash prescription-drug prices, limit price increases of generic drugs to the inflation rate, and allow consumers to buy prescription drugs from other countries. (Ukraine, maybe?)

Joe will not only expand Medicaid eligibility, but (another whiff of totalitarianism) he'll do so by "automatically enrolling... individuals when they interact with certain institutions (such as public schools) or other programs for low income populations." Buying your groceries with a SNAP EBT card? Turn your head and cough.

Joe will decriminalize cannabis, end "all incarceration for drug use alone" (no sharing!), eliminate mandatory minimum prison sentences, end the death penalty, and appoint the first African-American woman to Supreme Court (whether she wants to go there or not).

Joe will pass the Equal Rights Amendment, "reverse the transgender military ban," roll back "broad religious exemptions to existing nondiscrimination laws and policies," and "restore transgender students' access to sports, bathroom, and locker rooms in accordance with their gender identity." (Where did the girl's field hockey team get that 6'4" goalkeeper with a beard?)

Joe will institute public financing of elections, pass a "Constitutional amendment to entirely eliminate private dollars from our federal elections," ban all contributions from lobbyists "to those who [sic] they lobby," and provide matching funds for "federal candidates receiving small dollar donations." Loved all of those $5 contributions you got, Bernie, here's another fiver from the Treasury.

Joe "will immediately do away with the Trump Administration's draconian immigration policies" and "ensure asylum laws protect people fleeing persecution." Though, I doubt this asylum will include people fleeing persecution from Joe's threat to "hold corporate executives personally accountable – including jail time when merited" if they violate environmental regulations or labor laws.

Joe will reinstate the assault-weapon ban (never mind that this is a law about how guns look, not what guns do). He'll hold gun manufacturers liable for damages if one of the guns they made hurts someone. (Next, I guess, is holding cement mixers liable if I drop a concrete block on my foot.) He'll make background checks mandatory not just for gun sales but for every kind of gun transfer.

When my son was 10, he got a .22 for Christmas. Can Santa pass a background check? That North Pole address looks fishy – especially what with global warming filling the Arctic with swimming elves and reindeer.

Also, Santa, "Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?" Joe promises to "notify law enforcement when a potential firearms purchaser fails a background check" – whether the guy gets a gun or not.

There's all this... and much, much more...

And yet – whether he seems to be awake or not – at least Joe isn't woke. Biden is a member of the old-fashioned liberal elite, not the modern loony Left. He uses every imaginable pretext to pledge "good-paying union jobs." He wimps out on the question of slavery reparations: "a Biden Administration will support a study of reparations." (Italics added, but – given what happens when politicians "study" an issue – not needed.) He even makes two brief favorable mentions of "advanced nuclear reactors" to produce electricity. Joe is not a modern loony Leftist. But he's a reminder of just how loony the old-fashioned liberal elite can be.

The concept of "governmental overreach" is beyond the elite's comprehension. "President Biden will ensure that no child's future is determined by their zip code, parent's income, race, or disability" claims "Joe's Plan for Educators, Students, and our Future."

Also beyond liberal comprehension is the notion that liberal elites don't control the universe. "The Biden Plan for Combating Coronavirus (COVID-19)" contains the statement "Biden would also get ahead of this year's seasonal flu..." which will break out before Joe is in any governmental position at all.

With governmental elitism comes a contempt for the people who are to be governed. They are pissed upon from a great height as in "Lift Every Voice: The Biden Plan for Black America" where Joe declares, without embarrassment, that he'll "give local elected officials the tools and resources they need to combat gentrification."

And the liberal elite worldview does not seem to be a view of the world that the rest of us live in. Here, from "The Biden Plan for Ending Gun Violence," is Joe's proposal to "tackle urban gun violence" with something called "Group Violence Intervention" which "organizes community leaders to work with individuals most likely to commit acts of gun violence, express the community's demand that the gun violence stop, and connect individuals who may be likely perpetrators with social and economic support services that may deter violent behavior." (Take that, Crips and Bloods!)

There's nothing senile about Joe... There's nothing wrong with his brain... His thinking is terrifyingly clear... Joe is an all too actively minded idiot.

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