Nay, Big Spender

On the Economy, Biden Told Us the Mistake He was Going to Make, Then He Made It

In the waning days of the Bush administration, White House staffers developed a peculiar tic. When cornered about their boss's legacy – particularly regarding that ill-fated adventure in Iraq – they would adopt a sort of ceremonial gravitas, intoning that "history" would be the final arbiter of George W. Bush's presidency. It was, of course, a more dignified way of saying "leave me alone," wrapped in the protective gauze of future vindication

The construction had an almost mystical appeal. "History" carries the weight of marble monuments and leather-bound volumes, suggesting an omniscient judge who would, someday, see what we mere mortals in the present could not. Perhaps, they seemed to suggest, Muqtada al-Sadr would reveal himself as some kind of Madison-on-the Euphrates, transforming Iraq into a beacon of constitutional democracy. It was a comforting fiction, precisely because it could never be disproven in the present moment.

When officials start deferring to the court of future generations, it's usually because the verdict of the present is already in, and it isn't pretty. It's the rhetorical equivalent of asking for an extension on a failing grade, except in this case, the extension stretches into infinity.

The inevitable question that trails every administration in its twilight now hovers over Biden’s. Lurking within that question is an assumption that our current understanding of the present—excepting, of course, Biden himself—is sound. Every armchair historian, squinting at the horizon of history from the vantage point of now, knows that circumstances could change. Wars could escalate, challenges could deepen, and the perceived deficiencies of Biden’s presidency might magnify in hindsight.

But let’s assume they don’t. Let’s imagine that the wars, plagues, economic headwinds, and authoritarian impulses of Donald Trump remain within the median 25th-75th percentile of our predictions. In that scenario, the conventional wisdom, goes something like this: Joe Biden was a good president, undone by his stubbornness and an enabling staff. He set the country on the right course economically but failed to effectively communicate the significance of his accomplishments.

But what if we're missing something more fundamental? Not because of some external catastrophe – a Syrian implosion or a Russian nuclear strike – but because our basic assessments are wrong in ways that have nothing to do with apocalyptic scenarios or right-wing fever dreams about crime empires and throttled freedoms. I've found myself increasingly troubled by a simpler, more prosaic possibility: that the Biden administration's economic agenda, still celebrated within Democratic circles as a triumph of progressive governance, was built on a series of profound miscalculations.

The Choice to Spend

The numbers, when you lay them bare, take on an almost surreal quality. First came