He will deal with GOP intransigence, by saying Biden didn't fail in anything because of it. His evidence for that will be that some Republicans offered to negotiate on Biden's covid relief bill and Biden knocked them back. Also that a number of Republicans, in the Senate and in the House, crossed the floor to vote for Biden's infrastructure bill. This, am guessing, is a good preview of Thiessen's 'Biden failures.' He wrote it one year ago.
Opinion - Biden can’t blame Republicans for his failures
By Marc A. Thiessen Columnist | January 20, 2022 at 1:32 p.m. EST
President Biden is wrapping up his first year in office. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
That, to put it gently, is a bunch of malarkey. Let’s review the history:
On his first major initiative — passage of “covid-relief” legislation — it was Biden who refused GOP offers of cooperation. On Feb. 1 — just days after Biden’s inaugural promise to reach across the aisle — 10 Senate Republicans led by Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) went to the White House and offered to give him the 60 votes needed to pass covid-relief legislation with a bipartisan, filibuster-proof majority.
Passing a bipartisan covid bill should have been a layup. After all, President Donald Trump did it five times. Until Biden came along, every single covid-relief bill had been approved with overwhelming bipartisan support in both houses. But Biden didn’t even make a pretense of pretending to negotiate. He held one meeting with Republicans and then effectively told them he didn’t need their votes. As all 10 Republicans explained .. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/collins-gop-blasts-biden-covid-compromise .. in a statement, the White House “roundly dismissed our effort … in order to justify its go-it-alone strategy.” Senate Democrats then used the budget reconciliation process to jam his $1.9 trillion plan through on a party-line vote.
Despite this, Senate Republicans returned to the negotiating table to forge a bipartisan infrastructure bill. Biden did his level best to sabotage it at every turn. In June, after Republicans and Democrats reached agreement on an infrastructure framework, Biden threatened to veto the deal .. shorturl.at/cdjqI .. if Congress did not first pass his massive Democrat-only Build Back Better social spending bill. Then, he issued an extraordinary eight-paragraph statement .. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/26/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-framework/ .. walking back his veto threat, promising not to link the two bills. Then he broke his word and urged members of his own party .. https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2021/10/02/the-strangest-thing-ive-ever-seen-494555 .. to take the infrastructure bill hostage as leverage to pass Build Back Better. With Biden’s blessing, they held up the bill for months.
In his news conference Wednesday, Biden claimed Trump had intimidated “an entire party where they’re unwilling to take any vote contrary to what he thinks.” Yet when Trump threatened to oppose any Republican “foolish enough to vote in favor” of the infrastructure bill, 19 Senate Republicans .. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/10/us/politics/republicans-senate-infrastructure.html — including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — did so anyway. In the House, Biden did not have enough Democratic votes to pass it. The bill reached his desk only because 13 House Republicans crossed the aisle to save it.
That’s not all. In June, the Senate passed .. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senate-set-pass-sweeping-bill-address-china-tech-threat-2021-06-08/ .. major bipartisan legislation to improve the United States’ ability to compete with China on technology, address the semiconductor shortage and supply chain issues, and prevent Chinese entities from engaging in cyberattacks or theft of intellectual property from U.S. firms. The bill passed the Senate by an overwhelming 68 to 32. But it has languished in the Democratic-controlled House, where Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) refuses to bring it up for a vote. Biden has barely lifted a finger to get it passed.
[ You would know if it's the same one. i'm guessing it's the one that passed in July. U.S. Congress passes long-awaited bill to boost chipmakers, compete with China By David Shepardson and Patricia Zengerle [...]Many U.S. lawmakers had said they normally would not support hefty subsidies for private businesses but noted that China and the European Union have been awarding billions in incentives to their chip companies. They also cited national security risks and huge global supply chain problems that have hampered global manufacturing. https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-congress-poised-pass-long-awaited-bill-boost-chipmakers-compete-with-china-2022-07-28/ ]
The president’s first year in office was a calamitous failure not because of Republican intransigence, but because he allowed himself to be captured by his party’s progressive wing, which convinced him that he should be a transformational president. Americans didn’t vote for a transformational president. They voted for the unity, moderation and compromise that Biden promised but failed to deliver. He can’t blame the GOP for that.
Opinion by Marc Thiessen Marc Thiessen writes a twice-weekly column for The Post on foreign and domestic policy. He is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the former chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. Twitter
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