“EXIM is an independent Executive Branch agency with a mission of supporting American jobs by facilitating the export of U.S. goods and services. When private sector lenders are unable or unwilling to provide financing, EXIM fills in the gap for American businesses by equipping them with the financing tools necessary to compete for global sales.”
Well, clearly they’re doing it on behalf of Biden then…
“As an independent federal agency, EXIM contributes to U.S. economic growth by supporting tens of thousands of jobs in exporting businesses and their supply chains across the United States. Since 1992, EXIM has generated more than $9 billion for the U.S. Treasury for repayment of U.S. debt.”
This direct contradiction of clearly articulated administration policy is possible because of the bank’s nominal independence. It makes its own decisions and evaluates its own deals—it’s supposed to conduct transactions that support the American economy, free from political interference.
In practice, however, the administration has quite a bit of sway over the bank and its priorities. The president appoints the director and the governing board, with the approval of the Senate. Currently, the bank’s president and chair is Reta Jo Lewis, a longtime Democratic operative and reliable Biden ally who worked in the Clinton and Obama White Houses. Publicly, the Biden administration has sent signals recently that it is not happy with its own bank. Last years, when the bank approved a loan to expand an oil project in Indonesia, a spokesperson for Biden’s National Security Council told Bloomberg News that ExIm had “made an independent decision to approve the loan under its authorities and its decision does not reflect administration policy.” While the statement was a notable shot across the bow from one part of the Biden administration to another, it also was not accompanied by any further action.
For critics, the recently approved Bahrain project is an excruciating example of the bank’s refusal to adhere to the administration’s stated policies on financing fossil fuel projects. Defenders of the bank will point out that the administration’s promise in Glasgow was just that—a promise, not a law. The bank has defended its oil and gas investments, pointing to the law that prohibits it from discriminating against projects based on industry.
Funny you should say "shit sandwich" -- I had this conversation a little while ago with some of y'all and no one could really attack Biden's record coherently. It's just the "say vaguely bad-sounding things about him over and over from a variety of accounts" strategy, with no effort at backing it up with more than the same handful of like 5-6 anecdotes about some bad thing that happened under his watch.
Like I said there, I actually didn't really realize how much good stuff Biden had done or how hard it was to come up with factual criticism of him, until y'all started attacking him unfairly and I started spending time looking up what he's been up to. I only started on it to see whether you were telling the truth about it.
Genuine question for you, what good stuff has Biden done for you? My life is worse now in almost every way than it was pre-COVID and nothing in Biden’s track record shows that he plans on reversing that for me.
Biden, like Trump, is a garbage neolib whose biggest accomplishments are funneling more public dollars to the 1% via ridiculous, inefficient contracts, who, unlike Trump, just so happens to not want to kill gay people. The billionaire class is the single greatest threat to Americans and he’s done nothing tangible to address or solve that problem.
My life is worse now in almost every way than it was pre-COVID
That's an interesting choice of timeframe. My life has changed a lot since before Covid, too. Can you list some specific ways yours changed that are Biden's fault?
nothing in Biden's track record shows that he plans on reversing that for me.
Sure, I'll copy-paste:
He took the biggest action on climate change in US history; the goal of the climate bill is to put us on track for a 40% reduction in US emissions by 2030. It’s way too late but that’s clearly not Biden’s fault since he started fighting for it basically as soon as he got into office, and managed to achieve passed legislation which is several standard deviations above the norm for “let’s ignore it until we’re underwater and on fire” US politician status quo.
He ordered the forgiveness of half a trillion dollars in student debt, about a third of the current total balance, and the Supreme Court told him no. He’s still managed to forgive $138 billion worth of it even against stiff Republican “no we need that money to give to Wall Street criminals pls” resistance.
He introduced a bill to legalize marijuana federally, which the Republicans killed in the senate.
He achieved the lowest unemployment in 20 years after having been handed an economy that was still digging out from the apocalypse that was 2020.
I think the first one is probably the biggest one in terms of having a potential impact on me directly. I mean, any amount of change in emissions will probably alter the apocalypse that's coming within my lifetime, to some degree... it's a little bit of a hard thing to judge because it's so abstract and far away, and the outcomes will be so bad regardless that it's hard to celebrate any amount of "progress" that's only drawing down the continuing damage that's added to the pile with every passing year. But specifically because the likely outcomes include so much death and suffering, withdrawing that amount of US emissions will save some large number of human lives way way down the road once the piper starts to ask for the bill in earnest. Whether that'll include my individual life is obviously impossible to say, but it might.
Biden, like Trump, is a garbage neolib whose biggest accomplishments are funneling more public dollars to the 1% via ridiculous, inefficient contracts
I think it goes without saying that I don't agree with this. Can you list some specific policies and events, similar to the ones I listed above? Every single one of those is something no US president within my lifetime would have done. Can we keep moving forward from there to get a Bernie Sanders in? Sure! Sounds great. Does that mean he's a shit sandwich because he only did that much? No. I'm stunned that he was able to get the carbon emissions bills or the student loan forgiveness through the rest of the current US government.
If you're going to say that all doesn't count, can you list some harm he's done? I'm fine to talk about this stuff.
The billionaire class is the single greatest threat to Americans and he's done nothing tangible to address or solve that problem.
You know he did the 15% minimum corporate tax which took a big bite out of the "big companies paying no tax through tricksy methods" problem, beefed up the IRS to go after rich tax cheats, and his current budget includes more stuff aimed at the millionaire/billionaire class, right?
These folks aren’t operating in good faith.
Have you ever, and I mean ever, seen them point at a deeply divided congress under Biden’s tenure as President? Have they reckoned with the fact that anything Biden does by executive order can just as easily be undone? Do they talk of how America is largely moderate and not at all far left? Look around and see them continue to deny Bernie’s loss of nine years ago, even while they blame Hillary ad nauseam (twice today by my reading.)
There’s little if any good faith coming from these folks, and so they take the cheap, uninformed hits and block their detractors. They know nothing of compromise and little of how governance works, and often can easily be confused for Trump’s own lifeblood.
I see it all over lemmy where a few, usually new or very young accounts, will pile on me making the same arguments. My favorite one right now is that ‘Biden has done nothing to get marijuana rescheduled’ to which I point to the fact that the decision is currently sitting with the DEA, the group that decides what is in the schedule and where. The response? ‘It’s not done yet so Biden hasn’t done anything’. And because I, a rando on the internet, can’t clairvoyantly say when it will be rescheduled, then it’s not real.
It’s such an asinine argument and I got piled by several accounts with it telling me it’s probably the same chud trying to increase their influence by making it seem like people agree with them.
He completely flipped on immigration. He left Trump era policies in place and made them worse.
He shut down the biggest union action in the last decade.
He’s sending weapons to a genocidal regime.
His idea of economic problems is shrinkflation. While grocery stores and land lords have a third of the country over the barrel.
I can keep going. Should I keep going? Should I talk about the continuation of Trump’s trade war with China? The protectionist legislation he championed so auto manufacturers can keep prices up and quality down?
He completely flipped on immigration. He left Trump era policies in place and made them worse.
Which policies?
He shut down the biggest union action in the last decade.
There were 458,900 workers involved in work stoppages in 2023, notably including the motion pitcture strike which is the bulk of that huge bar up at the top of the graph. It looks to me like the rail strike involved about 1,100 workers, barely visible down at the bottom. You're talking about the rail strike, yes? You didn't say so but that's the one I'm aware of him shutting down and the talking point that y'all like to use. The rail strike wasn't the biggest union action in the last decade or in 2023; it wasn't 1% of the union action in 2023.
What it looks like to me is that he shut down the rail strike because it would have a big impact on the rest of the economy, then his labor department kept working the issue and got the workers their sick days anyway.
Your assertion is that because he shut down 0.2% of the strikes that happened in 2023, for specific reasons, and then got the workers what they were asking for anyway, he's a bad president for labor?
(Edit: Hang on, is the rail strike not in that chart? Maybe because it didn't happen or it started in 2022, it doesn't show there. I'm trying to look up now how many workers were actually involved; it was more than 1,100.)
(Edit 2: I am totally wrong -- it was 115,000 workers, in 2022 and way more sizable than what I was saying. I still stick with the point that if Biden was anti-union he would have done something about some of the 458,900 people who went on strike in 2023.)
He's sending weapons to a genocidal regime.
No argument. It's fucked. There are some things he's doing better than a normal president and much much better than Trump, but yes, it's fucked. Hopefully all the noise about a break with Netanyahu starts to turn into less dead or starving Palestinians.
His idea of economic problems is shrinkflation. While grocery stores and land lords have a third of the country over the barrel.
I ... what?
He instituted a minimum 15% corporate tax, he forgave $138 billion worth of student loans, he came out of the COVID apocalypse with the lowest unemployment in 20 years and the strongest recovery out of any first-world country by a pretty decent margin... I honestly can't even tell what you're complaining about here. You're assigning him an idea about what he thinks, and then complaining that his economics are bad because of nothing about what actually happened but because of the belief you assigned him?
I can keep going. Should I keep going? Should I talk about the continuation of Trump's trade war with China? The protectionist legislation he championed so auto manufacturers can keep prices up and quality down?
Let's stick with those four initial points for a second. What immigration policies? I have a bunch to say about his immigration policies, but I want to know what Trump-era policies you're even talking about him making worse before I say too much about it.
Remain in Mexico. Refusing to honor Asylum unless people manage to get processed through a border control point. Requiring Asylees to stay in the country that’s dangerous for them until we oh so graciously give them permission to flee for their lives. Considering Mexico a safe country even though it’s perpetually one bad weekend away from the cartels just running the place.
The Rail workers did not get their sick days. Not the ones on the rails working themselves to death. They gave sick days to their office bound workers. The guys who actually keep the trains running are still being forced to work without sick days and under threat of being fired if they fail to show up when called, even if they’re at the doctor’s office. The inhumane conditions that were brought to light were not fixed. They gave stuff to support staff and called it a victory. It’s the biggest union action in the last decade because of the impact it could have had and because it showed us exactly what the politicians think of the working class.
Biden has not taken serious action to reduce grocery prices or other necessities. That’s great that he taxed corporations but that doesn’t put food on the table. His fixation on shrinkflation can be seen in his speeches. And that’s the slight improvement from his attempt to take a victory lap on an economy people are still struggling in. We aren’t dumb and we aren’t blind.
Which of those policies did Biden make worse and how? Both of what you listed (remain in Mexico and asylum only through a port of entry) are Trump policies. I know Trump did family separation and Biden started the task force to reunite families; did that make things worse?
Things have gotten substantially worse simply because the number of migrants has gone up, but Biden has been fighting with the Republicans to try to get more judges to clear the backlog of asylum cases, trying to get them not to drown people in the Rio Grande, things like that. Do you have some specific policy that he's actually made worse?
What is your source for what you're saying about sick days? Here is mine; the unions and the news have been saying that as of October, 91% of rail workers have sick days (and that link has a link to a PDF that's a little fact sheet about different roles and the benefits they get).
Biden has not taken serious action to reduce grocery prices or other necessities. That's great that he taxed corporations but that doesn't put food on the table. His fixation on shrinkflation can be seen in his speeches. And that's the slight improvement from his attempt to take a victory lap on an economy people are still struggling in. We aren't dumb and we aren't blind.
I honestly don't see anything to respond to here. It kinda sounds like a campaign ad -- "doesn't put food on the table" "we aren't dumb." If you want to talk about his economic performance in terms of the numbers instead of the fee fees you're welcome to and I'll respond to what you have to say, but otherwise I'm comfortable with what I've said so far.
I gave you three border policies not two. Then to talk about union stuff you link to the literal industry lobbying organization. Finally you pass off a Gallup Research poll as fee fees.
That’s three red flags and a big old nope from me.
This direct contradiction of clearly articulated administration policy is possible because because of the bank’s nominal independence. It makes its own decisions and evaluates its own deals—it’s supposed to conduct transactions that support the American economy, free from political interference.
I see you have taken to heart my advice about making more subtle and "what? it's technically true"-defensible postings, that through the phrasing of their headline still feed the narrative that Biden's bad for the climate even though he pushed through a climate bill that's predicted to reduce US emissions by 40% in the next 6 years, and this particular financing deal is only tangentially related to him. (In the article it says the bank is actually forbidden by law from choosing deals to finance or not based on which industry they relate to.)
Name a reasonable (see: electable) alternative who is
better on Israel
better for the economy
can beat trump
Until you can you should probably stfu because if you think it’s better to see Biden lose to trump over Israel, you’re going to be pretty damn disappointed when trump puts boots on the ground to help Israel.
I’m tired of seeing this worn out point. What exactly would you propose he do that is:
Actually possible for him to do
Not going to make the situation worse
Not something he is already doing
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like what Israel is doing either but the US has painted themselves into a corner long before the Biden admin. We can’t stop supporting Israel without basically ceding control of the region to Iran, and I guarantee Iran will do shit that will make Israel look like Mr. Rogers by comparison.
I’m not saying there’s nothing he could be doing better, but I don’t see any productive discussion from the people calling him Genocide Joe.
And all that aside, he’s still by far the preferable alternative to Don Cheeto who would likely actually be a genocide enabler.
I mean… I don’t see eye to eye with the man on certain things either but… Do you think Trump is going to do better when it comes to fossil fuels? He’s going to fight for the environment harder?
Yes a third party candidate winning would be nice. But do you think this election, when we risk having Trump again, is the year to try to divide the votes like that? When, we both know, they’re zero chance in hell of a third party candidate winning anytime soon?
Maybe down the road we’ll get there. But right now the only actual choices are Trump and Biden. That’s just the world we live in. I’m not happy with it either, just like I wasn’t happy with having to pick Clinton or Trump.
i didn’t vote for biden in 2012 or 2020. i won’t be doing it this year. if you’re worried about dividing the vote, you should help me decide whether we’re voting for jill stein or cornel west.
I’m sorry but you live in a land of delusion. That’s just not happening this time. We’re not there yet. And you posting slightly snarky comments on a very tiny website like this isn’t what’s going to turn the tide and turn this into a third party country.
We only have two options. I’m not happy with it either but that’s where we are.
I know you’re planning on splitting the vote by voting for the conservative instead of a leftist, but I’m not calling you delusional. I’m certainly not lying about how many people are on the ballot.
I’ve literally acknowledged multiple times that there will be other people on the ballot, I simply am saying over and over in reality it’s going to be Biden or Trump.
You claiming that I called you a liar and now you claiming that I’m lying… This isn’t you being disingenuous is it? You actually didn’t understand what I’ve been saying all this time did you?
You honestly haven’t been following this conversation at all, have you?
Thank you! yours is a noble crusade keeping up with these jokers. I’ve also notice there are 3 bad-actor posters, and coincidentally every comment of descent gets their 3 downvotes.
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