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A New Beginning
Achieving Unity
To fulfill his promise of unification, Biden must bypass the partisan members of Congress and concentrate his efforts on the American people.
- Joe Biden
Like our newest president, Barack Obama came into office promising to bridge the partisan divide. His outstretched hand was slapped back by an opposing party that was obsessed with making him a one-term president. Still, Obama ignored his overwhelming majority in the Senate and crafted a stimulus bill that jettisoned the money for infrastructure projects that he preferred and replaced them with tax cuts that Republicans demanded. For his efforts, not a single Republican voted for the package. Americans paid the price as the final result was much too small and caused a shallow recovery.
Not having learned his lesson, Obama spent months trying to craft a bipartisan health care reform bill. What started as a plan for universal health care devolved into a plan that included elements crafted by The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. Even with these compromises, Obamacare was passed without any Republican votes. While this plan did not provide health care for all Americans, it did add millions to the ranks of those having health insurance. Still, the Republicans have taken dozens of votes in an attempt to repeal it.
Once the Republican party took control of the legislative branch they entrenched even further. Compromising was impossible, they wanted capitulation. Forgoing the opportunity to appoint a liberal to a vacant seat on the Supreme Court, Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a proven judicial moderate. Mitch McConnell did not even allow the nomination to be considered, leaving the vacancy available for Trump to fill with a right-wing justice.
Biden enters the White House with an opposition party that is more hostile than the one Obama faced. It took…
