Few American politicians had such durable careers as Joe Biden, who won his first election to the U.S. Senate at almost exactly the minimum age (30) for the office. He would spend nearly four decades there, leaving only in 2008 to assume the vice presidency under Barack Obama. When he was bypassed in 2016 for Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party’s nominee, it looked as though his dream of being president would vanish into the what-ifs of history. But in a period of political surprise (which now includes a third Donald Trump campaign and a second term for the billionaire celebrity), Biden emerged from retirement to win the presidency at the age of 78.
Once Biden reached the office he spent a lifetime seeking, what did he do with it? The record is not a positive one.
President Biden inherited the ongoing crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. He fumbled it in two important ways. First, he tried to impose a mandate for vaccines that needed time to establish themselves as trustworthy to the public. Second, he continued to pour COVID relief money into the economy past the point where it was likely needed. Heavy spending on top of earlier COVID efforts helped spur the inflation that was probably the biggest factor in the Democrats’ loss to Trump in 2024. All Americans have felt the effect on their bottom line.
COVID was only one part of the general fiscal disaster the Biden administration presided over. By the end of his presidency, Biden’s administration racked up nearly $8 trillion of the total $36 trillion that comprise the national debt. Despite calls from the Federal Reserve for policymakers to reduce spending to help control inflation, the Biden administration seemed to have only one strategy, which was pushing down the accelerator. During Biden’s term in office, interest on the debt surpassed the amount spent on national defense, which is a fact the next administration must not ignore.
Despite the rapidly growing fiscal crisis, President Biden adopted an almost maniacal drive to cancel student loan debt. Although he was rebuffed by the courts (including the Supreme Court) time and again, Biden pushed to engage in massive cancellations of loan repayments. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that Biden’s debt cancellation plans would cost as much as $1.4 trillion, which is an eye-opening amount considering the entire national debt is $36 trillion. Besides the fiscal effect of Biden’s efforts, the plan ignored the U.S. Constitution. Presidents cannot unilaterally cancel the effect of legislation. Though Biden acknowledged as much early on, he still pressed forward as though American presidents are unchecked prime movers unbound by the separation of powers or the force of law.
Click Here to Read More (Originally Published at World Magazine)
Hunter (J.D., Ph.D.) is the provost and dean of faculty at North Greenville University in South Carolina. He is the author of The End of Secularism, Political Thought: A Student’s Guide, and The System Has a Soul. His work has appeared in a wide variety of other books and journals. He is formally affiliated with Touchstone, the Journal of Markets and Morality, the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy, and the Land Center at Southwestern Seminary.