Photo Illustration by Thomas Levinson/The Daily Beast/Getty/Reuters
Joe Biden is the new FDR, right? I mean, that’s what we were told over and over again—for years. Time magazine gave us the headline, “How Joe Biden is Positioning Himself as a Modern FDR.” Three months into Biden’s term, CNN chipped in with “Three Striking Similarities Between FDR and Biden.” The New Republic won the most-absurdly-effusive headline contest with “Forget FDR. Biden is a Major President in His Own Right.”
Turns out it was all a bad joke. If that wasn’t obvious before the fight over the debt ceiling, it should be now.
The president has multiple legal options for challenging or completely ignoring the debt limit. Instead of pursuing any of them, he’s negotiating with Republicans about ways to make America’s welfare state—always a pale and stunted thing by global standards—even more miserly.