A liberal journalist blasted President Biden over his new budget proposal on Tuesday, arguing it lacked the social spending progressive Democrats expected and invested too much into the military and policing.
In a op-ed for CNN, Jill Filipovic wrote that the budget proves Biden is a “timid moderate” with “the same old tacking-right policies,” which she predicted would depress Democrat votes and deliver a “red wave” victory to Republicans in November.
President Joe Biden attends a virtual COVID-19 summit during the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly on the White House campus, Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2021.
(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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“President Joe Biden’s proposed budget makes one thing clear: Despite progressive hopes that the President might be a secret Franklin Delano Roosevelt capable of ushering in an ambitious domestic agenda, Biden is exactly the timid moderate he always appeared to be,” Filipovic wrote.
“He seems to be hoping that an agenda of the same old tacking-right policies will benefit vulnerable Democrats in the midterms. Instead, he may simply be depressing Democratic enthusiasm and helping to consign the party to a red wave,” she added.
Filipovic noted the budget proposal request for an increase in military spending “made sense” considering the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine, as well as an increasingly powerful China.
However, she lamented that such increases coincided with claims that the country couldn’t “afford robust and necessary social welfare programs,” and that most of the increased money for community and police anti-violence programs was “for more policing.”
A crane operates at the regional government headquarters of Mykolaiv, Ukraine, after a Russian attack, on Wednesday, March 30, 2022.
(AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
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Filipovic went on to complain that the administration was prioritizing “policing and militarism,” but didn’t seem to want to make “sufficient investments in policies that the future of the nation hinges on,” such as tackling the “existential emergency” of climate change and providing the universal government-funded child care that the country “needs.”
She argued that the coronavirus pandemic made clear the need for “basic social support systems,” like paid parental leave, universal healthcare and paid sick days.
“How utterly insulting that after years of asking individual Americans to shoulder these burdens almost entirely on their own, the President, whose election was fueled by both moderate voters and the Democratic Party’s progressive base, hasn’t managed to put much of anything in place in the long term to support American families,” Filipovic wrote.
She claimed that “the lion’s share of the blame” lay with Sens. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., and Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., two moderates who opposed a number of their fellow Democrats’ social spending policy priorities since the Party took control of the Senate following the 2020 elections.
Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema
(Getty Images/Reuters)
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“But the President could certainly have been even a touch more ambitious in this budget. Instead, he seems more concerned with convincing the public that he’s a pro-police, pro-military tough guy and less interested in delivering the things that would materially improve the lives of average folks,” Filipovic wrote.
“With the midterms coming up in November, he needs to not alienate the center while also keeping the Democratic base, which includes a sizable number of progressives, on board,” she added.
“Budgets are indeed statements of values. And Democrats would be justified in wondering if Biden’s values align with ours,” Filipovic wrote.