Letters to the Editor: Biden deserves to be heralded as another FDR if he succeeds

To the editor: I’m not sure how Joe Biden’s presidency and agenda will be seen in the rearview mirror of history, but some of columnist Jonah Goldberg’s premises supporting his conclusion that they “won’t be a new New Deal nor ... the beginning of a new Progressive Era” left me scratching my head. (“What new New Deal? Biden’s big spending doesn’t make him FDR,” Opinion, May 4)

Goldberg states, “Much of Biden’s agenda amounts to one-time outlays,” and in his view, the spending is unwarranted.

Granted, the American Rescue Plan (COVID relief) was a one-time outlay, but roughly two-thirds of the American public thinks it was warranted. And even though they didn’t cast a single vote for it, congressional Republicans seem to like it now.

When it comes to the American Families Plan (education, healthcare and child care) and the American Jobs Plan (infrastructure), most of the public sees these as necessary, overdue, ongoing investments.

How can Goldberg see this as “something closer to the opposite” of popular support?

John Eaglesham, Long Beach

..

To the editor: Goldberg, I think, misses the point when he says Biden’s agenda is not a “new New Deal.” The circumstances of the early 1930s and now are different, but the parallels are striking.

Like Herbert H. Hoover, Donald Trump and other Republicans have driven this country into the ground. Today, lower taxes, insufficient domestic spending and starved government agencies have made us a poorer nation while a few have gotten obscenely rich. Voter suppression, gerrymandering, fearmongering and an unrepresentative electoral system have given us minority rule.

Biden is trying desperately to right the ship of state and resuscitate the working and middle classes. If he succeeds, he will stand beside FDR as one of our greatest presidents.

Paul Moser III, Palm Desert