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Candidate Joe Biden campaigned as the centrist exemplar of a return to pre-Trump normal, but President Joe Biden has moved swiftly to enlarge the scope of his ambitions far beyond the status quo ante. On Wednesday night, the ninety-ninth of his Presidency, Biden offered a striking vision of a country renewed by an activist government. Harkening back to the early-twentieth-century liberalism of his party forebears, Biden envisioned a new age of once in a generation federal investments in everything from child care to electric cars, while promising benefits as varied as free community college and an end to cancer. To anyone who remembered last years Democratic primaries, the Presidents first address to a joint session of Congress sounded as if Elizabeth Warren, and not Biden, had won.

For just over an hour, Biden dazzled with the prospect of an American utopiaa stark contrast to the dystopian reality of our plague year just past. He spoke of the largest jobs plan since World War II, universal preschool, of meeting the climate crisis, and of the chance to root out systemic racism that plagues America; he called for gun control and immigration reform and cutting the prices on prescription drugs. He pushed for raising the minimum wage and equal pay for women and family and medical leave. Beyond a populist promise of higher taxes on wealthy corporations and people making more than four hundred thousand dollars a year, Biden did not mention the multi-trillion-dollar price tag that would come with his proposals. Nor did he talk about the remote chance of passage that so much of this agenda has on Capitol Hill, where, despite the general popularity of many of his proposals, gridlock prevails and the political reality is a fifty-fifty Senate. For the past four years, Donald Trump used his speeches to sell alternate realities to his supporters. Here, at last, was an alternate reality that Democrats could get behind.

In a response, Tim Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina, called Bidens address nothing more than a liberal wish list, a blunt summation about which it was hard to disagree. In many ways, there was a notable convergence in how Democrats and Republicans saw Bidens speech: as a breathtakingly ambitious set of proposals to use government as an instrument of social and economic transformationan unabashed progressive platform unseen from a President in my lifetime. Republicans hated it; Democrats, for the most part, loved it. The Drudge Report christened him Biden Hood, in honor of a program it summed up as tax the rich, give to the poor. We cannot stop until its done, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the leader of the Democratic Partys activist left wing in the House, enthused in a tweet. Keep going. Few were entirely sure how Biden, who has long been seen as an avatar of genial Beltway centrism, had got to this place.

Part of the answer, of course, is the mess that Biden inherited, an interlocking set of crises unleashed or worsened during Trumps disastrous Presidency, from the coronavirus pandemic and attendant economic damage to the attack by Trump and his supporters on the legitimacy of the election, which Biden called the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. Another part of the answer is undoubtedly that Biden himself, after spending the better part of five decades in Washington, is a believer in the power and possibility of government to shape America for the better. Politically, Biden is best known as Uncle Joe, a humble son of Scranton who rode the Amtrak home to Delaware at nightbut that overlooks perhaps a more relevant truth about the forty-sixth President, which is that he is fundamentally a creature of Washington: a senator for thirty-six years, and Vice-President and thus president of the Senate for eight years after that. Its good to be back, he said, smiling broadly, as he opened his address on Wednesday night, in the building he knows so well. Congress is where he began his national political career, and now he has staked his Presidency on getting things done there, too.

Joe Biden is the sixth President whose tenure I have covered. All of them, until now, operated in the shadow of Ronald Reagan. Three of these Presidentsthe two George Bushes and Trumpwere Republicans, and each resorted, at various times, to Reagans formula when speaking about the role of the federal government: as the problem, and most definitely not the solution to what ailed the country. Two were DemocratsBill Clinton and Barack Obamaand while both often gave stirring perorations about the achievements of Democratic Presidents such as F.D.R. and L.B.J., they, too, were shadowed by Reagans message when it came to outright embrace of big government, fearing to do so, politically, and often settling instead for incremental and more achievable change. Even the Obama health-care program that would ultimately bear his name represented a split-the-difference compromise between liberals, who wanted a single-payer national-health-care system, and more cautious Democrats, who feared that was never going to be politically achievable without some interim steps.

Biden may yet close out his Presidency with a record that has more in common with Obamas or Clintons than with Roosevelts, but his early decisions suggest that he is starting out by making a fundamentally different set of choices. The result was the most avowedly liberal call to action I have ever heard a President make from that congressional podium. Unlike the longtime socialist Bernie Sanders, whom Biden beat in the Democratic primaries, he does not call himself a revolutionary. Unlike the self-styled populist Donald Trump, whom Biden beat in the general election, he does not call himself a disrupter. Were Congress to enact his proposals, Biden would end up as both.

Transformation, however, requires the passage of legislation, not just words. Washington is still Washington, as Biden knows better than anyone, and if you dont have the votes you dont have the votes. Key Democrats as well as Republicans are skeptical of his costlier plans, and, so far, no G.O.P. votes have materialized for any of his major initiatives. At a hundred days, the politics are less transformed than Bidens rhetoric might suggest: in addition to the stubborn facts of a tied Senate and a House where the Democratic majority hangs on a handful of votes, the public remains as polarized and partisan toward this President as it was toward the last one. Bidens approval ratings, so far, are a straight-line inverse of those for Trump: about fifty-three per cent support Biden, which is just a percentage point or two higher than his share of the popular vote, last November. Bidens policies, however, are more popular: the $1.9 trillion COVID-relief bill that was passed in the early days of his Administration has more than sixty-per-cent support, as does his over-all effort to fight the pandemic. Raising taxes on large corporations, as Biden proposes, is overwhelmingly popular, as are other ideas he offered in his addressmaking for a kind of poll-tested, policy-wonk populism that stands in contrast to the pitchforks-and-rage variant that Trump relentlessly peddled. Republican members of Congress may not like it, but Biden claims that bipartisan support from the public ought to count as bipartisanship, too.

Its early days yet, but this is where Bidens true genius as a politician may lie: he has turned his likability into a moderating asset, suggesting that an ideological agenda when offered by a relatively non-ideological salesman does not sound all that threatening. Which, come to think of it, is pretty Reaganesque. Much like the Democrats during Reagans Presidency, Republicans today are struggling with how to attack a President who seems like such a nice guy. Just about everything else about American politics has changed in the four decades since then, however, including the brute realities of Congress. Understanding that, Biden appealed to his former colleagues not with transformational rhetoric but with the pragmatism of the Senate-committee chairman who he was for so many years. He said, Its within our power to do it, and We can do it, and Lets get it done.

In reality, he probably will not get it done, at least not all of it, but is there anything all that wrong with another hour or so of political fantasy in Washington? At least this time it was not the Trumpian variant of grievance and division. Biden made no mention of culture wars or admiring references to brutal dictators; he did not gaslight the nation about criminal illegal aliens or interrupt his speech to give one of the countrys highest honors to a man famous for disparaging feminazis. On the eve of his hundredth day in office, Joe Biden never publicly uttered the name Donald Trump, but being the un-Trump means Biden has already accomplished the first and most important promise of his Presidency.

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Bidens Speech Offers an Alternative Vision for Democrats to Love - The New Yorker

To see what racism and race-baiting look like, peerno further than todays Democrat-Left. From relentless obsession with critical race theory, baseless claims of "systemic racism," critical race theory brainwashing sessions, to delivery of health care based on skin color, Democrats and their ideological brethren see everything through black-and-white glasses.

A perfect case in point is the Democrat-Left response to the rebuttal by U.S. Sen. Tim Scott to President Joe Bidens address to Congress Wednesday night.

The $6 Trillion Man spoke softly and carried a big shopping list. After Biden quietly left no spending stoneunthrown, the South Carolina Republican delivered a warm, stirring and confident reply. He spoke about growing up poor, fatherless and Black. He also explained that he personally had experienced racism. But he added a key point. "Hear me clearly:America is not a racist country," Scottdeclared, in contrast to Bidens claims to the contrary.

DAN GAINOR: TIM SCOTT SPEECH TRIGGERS RADICAL REACTION FROM LIBERAL MEDIA MOB. DID THEY EVEN LISTEN TO IT?

Scott also chided Senate Democrats for filibustering his post-George Floyd police-reform legislation. Even after ScottgaveDemocratsthe opportunity to offer extensive amendments, they refused even toconsider hismeasure.Scott said: "My friends across the aisle seemed to want the issue more than they wanted a solution."

The Republican-Right praised Scotts speech, and I began saying "DeSantis-Scott 2024" to anyone who would listen.

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But the Democrat-Left reacted not with a refutation of Scott on substance, but with bitter, bigoted attacks on him as a Black man who refuses to toe the Lefts line and dares to think for himself.

*The vicious slur "Uncle Tim" trended on Twitter for 12 hours before the normally hypersensitive censors at that Big Tech giant judged this inappropriate. Of course, it blamed a misfiring algorithm.

*"A major strategy of racists,is to incentivize one ofits[sic] Black victims to act as the crash test dummy for white supremacy," said documentarian TariqNasheed, AKA Tariq Elite and K-Flex. "WhenUncle Tim Scottsays America is not a racist country, he is fully aware he is speaking in bad faith,"Nasheedcontinued via Twitter. "The purpose is to protect white supremacists."

*According to ABC talk-show host and "comedian" Jimmy Kimmel, Scott said America is not a racist country, "and then Tim went back to thesensory deprivation egghe calls home."

Rather than mock Scott, the Democrat-Left might ask themselves why they never managed to elect a Black senator from the South between Reconstruction and Scotts election on Nov. 4, 2014.

On June 22, 2010, Scott won 68% of the Republican primary-runoff vote for a Palmetto State U.S. House seat. Scott defeated Paul Thurmond, who scored just 32% of the vote. Never mind that Thurmond is Whiteand alsothe son of South Carolinas late, long-serving U.S. senator, the legendary Strom Thurmond.

Parenthetically, Strom Thurmond was the only prominent segregationist Southern Democrat who became a Republican. The Left loves to scream the filthy lie that the Democrats who oppressed Blacks under Jim Crow morphed into Republicans. While Thurmond certainly did this, the other Dixiecrats who tortured Blacksincluding Alabamas police-dog deploying Democrat National committeeman Bull Connor, Govs. Orval Faubus of Arkansas and George Wallace of Alabama, and filibustering U.S. Sens. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, and many moreall lived, ruled and died as Democrats.

Rather than bring Americans together,Bidens inflammatory rhetoric pits citizens against each other.

On Dec. 17, 2012, South Carolinas Republican Gov.Nikki Haley, a woman of East Indian descent, appointed Congressman Tim Scott to fill the seat of Republican Jim DeMint, who left the Senate to run the Heritage Foundation. Scott was elected to that seat on Nov. 4, 2014. He earned 749,266 votes, 83,661 more ballots that White Republican Lindsey Grahams total of 665,605 that election night.

Republicans proudly have held Tim Scott on their shoulders. Democrats attack him for being Black.

This confirms, yet again, that the Democrat Party has become Americas headquarters for racism and anti-Black bigotry.

For further proof of this phenomenon, consider the man atop the Democrat Party.

In his latest bid to unite America, President Joe Biden has called Georgias new election-integrity law "Jim Crow for the 21stcentury" and "Jim Crow on steroids."

"Parts of our country are backsliding," Biden moaned onApril 14. "The days of Jim Crow, passing laws that harken back to the era of poll taxes, when Black people were made to guess how many beans howmanyjelly beans in a jar, or count the number of bubbles in a bar of soap before they could cast their ballot."

Biden said this via satellite to the National Action Network. Its founder, Al Sharpton, is a museum-quality racial arsonist who has called Jews "diamond merchants"andFred Harari, who isJewish, a "White interloper." In 1995, Sharptons anti-Semitic slurs mayhave inspired Roland Smith, a crazed protester, who shot up and ignited Freddies Fashion Mart, Hararis store in Harlem. The ensuing inferno killed seven. Smith fatally shot himself.

Rather than bring Americans together,Bidens inflammatory rhetoric pits citizens against each other. While Bidenhurls Molotov catchphrases atthePeach States new statute, why didnt he help loosen Delawaresmuch tightervotingrules?

*Days of in-person early voting? Georgia: 17. Delaware: Zero

*Ballot dropboxes?Georgia: at least 159 (no fewer than one per county). Delaware: Zero

*No-excuse absentee ballots? Georgia: Yes. Delaware: No.

*Voters name and partyread aloudat polls? Georgia: No. Delaware: Yes

*Voter ID required? Georgia: Yes. Delaware: Yes.

Bidenalso trivializes the pain of Jim Crowsgenuinevictims while diluting the cruelty of thesemandatesand their76-year-long,"separate-but-equal"reign of terror.

"This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle," Biden told journalists on March 25. "I mean, this is gigantic what theyre trying to do, and it cannot be sustained."Male bald eaglestypically weigh 10 times as much as an averageone-pound crow.Does Biden truly believe that Georgias "Jim Eagle" law is10 times worsethan Jim Crows multifaceted, anti-Black voter suppression?

Poll taxes once made voting too expensive for poor citizens, manyBlack. Georgias new lawimposesno poll tax.

Before 1965,Alabamas literacy testasked prospective voters 68 questions, including:"If a state is a party to a case, the Constitution provides that original jurisdiction shall be in ________."By refusing to hear Texasanti-vote-fraud case last December, todays Supreme Courtforgotthatitis the correct answer.

Also,"The Constitution limits the size of the District of Columbia to ________."Answer: Ten square miles.

TodaysGeorgialawkeepsliteracy tests buried.

Michigans Jim Crow Museum observes that inmany a lynching,"The victim was an example of what happened to a Black man who tried to vote."Georgias lawdoesnot reinstatelynching.

Northern Freedom Riders headed South to register Black voters in 1961. Theyenduredbeatings and fire-bombings. Georgiasnew law resurrectsneitherpractice.

Three youngCongress of Racial Equalityactivists namedJames Chaney(a Black man),Andrew Goodman and Mickey Schwerner (both White) registered Black Mississippians to vote in June1964.On Goodmans first evening on duty, local Klansmen murdered them and hid theirbodiesin an earthen dam. Elsewhere, investigators found the bodies of Freedom Summer college students Henry Dee and Charles Moore(both Black), a cadaver in a CORE T-shirt, andfive other corpses.

Thatwas Jim Crow, not merely requiring votersBlack and otherwiseto show ID, asdo36 states(including Bidens blessed Delaware). Blacks routinely present ID at airports, banks, libraries, hotels and millions of other venues daily.

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For Biden to compare Georgias vote-expansion bill with the Jim Crow that slaughtered Chaney, Goodman, Schwerner, Dee and Mooreismorally grotesque, ber-divisive, and a profound insult to those who were killed while crushing Jim Crow and securing Black voting rights.

And,remember: The Jim Crow laws were passed, signed andbrutallyenforced by Democrats, not Republicans.Perhaps thats whyBiden cannot shut up about Jim Crow. Those racist rules werehispartys handiwork.

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Bucknell Universitys Michael Malarkey contributed research to this opinion piece.

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Deroy Murdock: Biden's 'Jim Eagle' vs. Jim Crow here's what Democrats get so profoundly wrong on race - Fox News

I am not suggesting that partisan governance will never lead to the repeal of valuable legislation. But theres little in recent history to support the view that political parties will undo everything their predecessors did. Sharp swings are likelier to happen when congressional gridlock pushes policymaking into executive orders which is true now. After legislation to protect Dreamers fell to a filibuster in the Senate, President Barack Obama turned to an executive order. President Donald Trump then reversed that order, and then President Biden reversed Trumps reversal. If the Dream Act which passed the House and got 55 Senate votes had been made law in 2010, I think it would have had a better shot at surviving the Trump era intact.

If anything, past legislation in America is too stable. More old policy should be revisited, and if its not working, uprooted or overhauled. Theres nothing wrong with one party passing a bill that the next party repeals. That gives voters information they can use to decide who to vote for in the future. If a party repeals a popular bill, it will pay an electoral price. If it repeals an unpopular bill, or replace it with something better, itll prosper. Thats the way the system should work.

We are a divided country, but one way we could become less divided is for the consequences of elections to be clearer. When legislation is so hard to pass, politics becomes a battle over identity rather than a battle over policy. Dont get me wrong: Fights over policy can be angry, even vicious. But they can also lead to changed minds as in the winning coalition Democrats built atop the successes of the New Deal or changed parties, as savvy politicians learn to accept the successes of the other side. There is a reason Republicans no longer try to repeal Medicare and Democrats shrink from raising taxes on the middle class.

This is what Manchin gets wrong: A world of partisan governance is a world in which Republicans and Democrats both get to pass their best ideas into law, and the public judges them on the results. That is far better than what we have now, where neither party can routinely pass its best ideas into law, and the public is left frustrated that so much political tumult changes so little.

This whole debate is peculiarly American. In parliamentary systems, the job of the majority party, or majority coalition, is to govern, and the job of the opposition party is to oppose. Cooperation can and does occur, but theres nothing unusual or regrettable when it doesnt, and government does not grind to a halt in its absence. Not so in America, where the president can be from one party and Congress can be controlled by another. In raising bipartisanship to a high political ideal, we have made a virtue out of a necessity, but thats left us little recourse, either philosophically or legislatively, when polarization turns bipartisanship into a rarity. Thats where we are now.

The legislation Senate Democrats have passed and considered in their first 100 days is unusually promising precisely because it has been unusually partisan. They are considering ideas they actually think are right for the country and popular with voters as opposed to the narrow set of ideas Republicans might support. The question they will face in the coming months is whether they want to embrace partisan legislating, repeatedly using budget reconciliation and even ridding the Senate of the filibuster, or abandon their agenda and leave the rest of the countrys problems unsolved.

I can tell you this, I am going to do everything I can to get the biggest, boldest change we can, because I think the people I represent depend on it, Schumer told me. My party depends on it. But most of all, the future of my country depends on it.

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Opinion | 100 Days of Big, Bold, Partisan Change - The New York Times

When Joseph R. Biden Jr. served as vice president in the Obama administration, he was known to preface his recommendations to other officials with a self-deprecating disclaimer. He may not have attended Harvard or Yale, Mr. Biden would say as he popped into an office or a meeting, but he was still a foreign policy expert, and he knew how to work Capitol Hill.

Mr. Biden isnt apologizing anymore.

Now 100 days into his presidency, Mr. Biden is driving the biggest expansion of American government in decades, an effort to use $6 trillion in federal spending to address social and economic challenges at a scale not seen in a half-century. Aides say he has come into his own as a party leader in ways that his uneven political career didnt always foretell, and that he is undeterred by matters that used to bother him, like having no Republican support for Democratic priorities.

For an establishment politician who cast his election campaign as a restoration of political norms, his record so far amounts to the kind of revolution that he said last year he would not pursue as president but that, aides say, became necessary to respond to a crippling pandemic. In doing so, Mr. Biden is validating the desires of a party that feels fiercely emboldened to push a liberal agenda through a polarized Congress.

The result is something few people expected: His presidency is transforming what it means to be a Democrat, even among a conservative wing of his party that spent decades preaching the gospel of bipartisanship.

Weve been very happy with his agenda and were the moderates, said Matt Bennett, a co-founder of Third Way, a Democratic think tank named after a governing style embraced by former President Bill Clinton that rejected liberal orthodoxy. Some have said this is a liberal wish list. We would argue that he is defining what it is to be a 21st-century moderate Democrat.

Mr. Biden trumpeted his expansive agenda again on Wednesday night in his first address to Congress, casting his efforts to expand vaccinations and pour trillions of dollars into the economy as a way to unify a fractured nation.

Were vaccinating the nation; were creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs, he said. Were delivering real results to people they can see it and feel it in their own lives.

Mr. Biden, now 78, has pursued these sweeping changes without completely losing his instinct for finding the center point of his party. As the Democratic consensus on issues has moved left over the years, he has kept pace on abortion, gun control, same-sex marriage, the Iraq war and criminal justice without going all the way to the furthest liberal stance. Now, he is leading a party that accelerated leftward during the Trump administration, and finding his own place on the Democratic spectrum the one with the most likelihood of legacy-cementing success.

In private calls with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, whom he vanquished in the Democratic primaries, he collects ideas from the partys liberal wing. With Senator Joe Manchin, the centrist West Virginia Democrat, he keeps tabs on his caucus and its slim congressional margins. And in conversations with Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader and a longtime negotiating partner, Mr. Biden appeals for bipartisan support, even as he warns that he wont wait for it indefinitely.

Biden is a politician who stays inside of the moment, said Rashad Robinson, president of racial justice organization Color of Change, which was skeptical of Mr. Biden during the primary but now praises his work. He stays inside of where the cultural context has moved.

To the consternation of some Republicans, Mr. Biden is approaching politics differently from recent Democratic presidents who believed that support from the opposing party would provide a bulwark for their policies and political standing. In the 1990s, Mr. Clinton espoused triangulation, a strategy that forced liberals to settle for moderate policies by cutting deals with Republicans. Former President Barack Obama spent months trying to win bipartisan buy-in for his policy proposals.

Both strategies were rooted in political fears that began in the Reagan era: Doing too much to assuage the partys left flank could alienate voters in the middle who took a more skeptical view of government, leaving Democrats unable to build coalitions for re-election.

Mr. Biden and his administration have embraced a different philosophy, arguing that difficult times have made liberal ideas popular with independents and some Republican voters, even if G.O.P. leaders continue to resist them.

The shift leftward, aides say, reflects a recognition by Mr. Biden that the problems facing the country require sweeping solutions, but also that both parties changed during the polarizing years of the Trump administration. Gone is the Senate where Mr. Biden spent decades, legislating like former President Ronald Reagan, who liked to say hed call any negotiation where he could get 70 percent of what he wanted a win.

Theres a difference between President Biden and Senator Biden, said former Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican who served for decades with Mr. Biden and supported his presidential bid. Even a difference between President Biden and Vice President Biden. Hes the president now and hes got the responsibility of trying to move this country forward. Yes, he wants to do it in a bipartisan way if he can. But the fact is these problems arent going to solve themselves.

Other Republicans see a more dissembling president, one who has broken his promises to reach across the aisle. In a floor speech on Wednesday afternoon, Mr. McConnell accused Mr. Biden of false advertising during his campaign, saying Americans elected a president who preached moderation.

He added: Over a few short months the Biden officials seems to have given up on selling actual unity in favor of catnip for their liberal base.

In his address, Mr. Biden said he was open to hearing Republican ideas on his infrastructure plans but wouldnt wait forever.

I applaud a group of Republican senators who just put forward their proposal, he said. We welcome ideas. But the rest of the world isnt waiting for us. Doing nothing is not an option.

The decades Mr. Biden spent cultivating a moderate image, paired with the conciliatory tone he has adopted toward Republicans in public, has allowed him to push his agenda without facing charges of socialism a label his opponents unsuccessfully tried to make stick during the presidential campaign.

Focus groups throughout the campaign found that voters felt they knew Mr. Biden, both for his family story and working class bona fides. Even now, voters rate Mr. Biden as more moderate than Mr. Obama at the same stage of his presidency, according to polling from NBC News. Mr. Biden is pursuing a more liberal agenda than Mr. Obama did, of course; but he is taking a lower-key approach and advancing relatively popular ideas, and he doesnt face the same smears and attacks as Mr. Obama did as the first Black president.

Its been very artful because its allowed him to create this weird equilibrium where people dont see him as a partisan ramrod, which gives comfort to moderates, said David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Mr. Obama. On the other hand, hes really moving forward on a lot of these initiatives.

Aides and allies say the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol also affected Mr. Bidens thinking about what the country might accept politically. The soon-to-be president believed the violence alienated a slice of voters from Mr. Trumps Republican Party, leaving them more open to Mr. Bidens agenda, particularly if he delivered tangible government benefits like stimulus checks and vaccines.

Its fair to say that Obama followed the Clinton model, and Biden is not, in some fundamental ways, because the world has changed so profoundly, Mr. Bennett said. Joe Biden is dealing with a seditious, anti-democratic set of lunatics. You cant deal with people who voted to overturn the election. You simply cannot, even if youre a moderate.

Mr. Bidens predecessor helped till the ground in other ways. As Mr. Trump focused his attention on waging baseless attacks against the election results last winter, coronavirus cases surged across the country, leaving Americans eager for more economic and public health assistance; Mr. Biden provided that with a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill just a few weeks into his presidency.

Joe Biden is living in a honeymoon with a prenup signed by Donald Trump, said Rahm Emanuel, who was Mr. Obamas chief of staff.

Yet some longtime friends and allies also see a more personal evolution in Mr. Biden since he assumed the role of president.

His inner circle says he is exhibiting a level of confidence theyve never seen before, combined with an awareness that he only has a short window to achieve his goals before next years midterm elections, which could cost Democrats their slim governing majority. While Mr. Biden has said his expectation is that hell run again, political allies privately admit that remains an open question given his age.

Mr. Bidens administration has not given liberals everything theyve wanted, pushing back on proposals to cancel student debt, adopt the entirety of the Green New Deal and completely eliminate the filibuster.

During negotiations with Mr. Sanderss team last summer over a shared platform that would unify Democrats behind Mr. Bidens general election candidacy, Biden aides made clear that they would not accept any recommendations that they didnt believe he could support if elected. At one point, they agreed to decriminalize marijuana but rejected a plan to legalize it completely, saying Mr. Biden didnt agree with that policy, according to a person involved in the talks.

But Mr. Biden didnt treat the negotiations as simply optics, an encouraging sign to many progressives that Mr. Biden and his team were committed to pursuing more-liberal policies than they had realized.

Mr. Bidens advisers said they were perplexed by the progressive zeal over the presidents economic agenda, noting that the American Jobs Plan is exactly what Mr. Biden promised he would do during his campaign. The view from inside the West Wing is that liberals and Republicans both made false assumptions about Mr. Biden and how he would govern.

Aides argue that Mr. Biden hasnt changed from the candidate who just months ago promised to find between four and eight Republican senators to support his policies. Hes still the politician who would be more comfortable compromising on his proposals, getting less than what he wanted, but passing legislation with Republicans on board. He still describes Mr. McConnell as a friend, and thinks he might have come in with a better shot at getting his support than Mr. Obama.

Aides also say he believes that bipartisan support, in the long term, will be more important for the country than passing his $4 trillion infrastructure bills untouched, through reconciliation.

In his heart, he probably still would love to forge bipartisan deals, Mr. Axelrod said. But hes going to be judged at the end of the day not on style points but what he gets done, and he knows that.

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How Biden Is Transforming What It Means to Be a Democrat - The New York Times

This episode of Whats Ahead points out how the tax proposals President Biden outlined in his national address will hurt, not help, the economy. If enacted, they will turn into political poison for the Democrats.

A doubling of the capital gains levy will shrink Uncle Sams revenue, as people will be more inclined to hold on to existing assets rather than sell them and pay so much of the proceeds to the government.

Raising the corporate tax to the highest level among developed nations will mean less money for expansion, which will shrink the economy.

The President wants tens of billions of more dollars for IRS audits of big companies and rich people, believing this will produce a bonanza in revenue. It wont. Those stories of wealthy individuals and corporations avoiding income taxes are almost always the result of legal strategies made possible by our incomprehensibly complex tax code.

The solution here is simple: Replace our hideous tax system with a simple flat tax. If you make it, you pay it.

Government revenues would go up.

Steve Forbes is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media.Steves newest project is the podcast Whats Ahead, where he engages the worlds top newsmakers,

Steve Forbes is Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes Media.Steves newest project is the podcast Whats Ahead, where he engages the worlds top newsmakers, politicians and pioneers in business and economics in honest conversations meant to challenge traditional conventions as well as featuring Steves signature views on the intersection of society, economic and policy. Steve helped create the recently released and highly acclaimed public television documentary, In Money We Trust?, which was produced under the auspices of Maryland Public television. The film was inspired by the book he co-authored, Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy and What We Can Do About It. Steves latest book is Reviving America: How Repealing Obamacare, Replacing the Tax Code and Reforming The Fed will Restore Hope and Prosperity co-authored by Elizabeth Ames (McGraw-Hill Professional).Steve writes editorials for each issue of Forbes under the heading of Fact and Comment. A widely respected economic prognosticator, he is the only writer to have won the highly prestigious Crystal Owl Award four times. The prize was formerly given by U.S. Steel Corporation to the financial journalist whose economic forecasts for the coming year proved most accurate.In both 1996 and 2000, Steve campaigned vigorously for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. Key to his platform were a flat tax, medical savings accounts, a new Social Security system for working Americans, parental choice of schools for their children, term limits and a strong national defense. Steve continues to energetically promote this agenda.

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Bidens Tax Plan Will Be Devastating For Democrats And The Economic Recovery - Forbes