Washington Post columnist predicts Biden ‘won’t have much of a lasting legacy’

Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell admitted in a recent piece that President Biden probably won’t have a lasting legacy, especially on the economy.

Rampell, who writes about economic issues for the outlet, disputed Biden and his boosters’ claims that the president’s economic legacy is a “roaring success.” She also dismissed his critics, calling it a “disastrous scar upon economic history.”

“In reality, relatively little of Biden’s economic agenda is likely to survive past his time in office,” the columnist wrote. “When we look back on the 46th president’s record in a couple of years, it probably will not have much of a lasting legacy either way.”

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Rampell dismantled multiple instances of praise that pundits “lavished” on Biden. She listed them, stating, “When Biden entered office, commentators lavished him with grand historical parallels. He was a ‘transformational’ president ushering in another FDR-esque ‘New Deal’ or the next LBJ-like ‘Great Society.’ Biden supposedly had a mandate to create an entirely new, post-neoliberal ‘paradigm’ for economics.”

Though she acknowledged that Biden “significantly expanded the social safety net to help vulnerable Americans” early in his term, Rampell wrote that “Biden’s programs have been relatively ephemeral. Many have already disappeared or are slated to expire soon.”

She noted how the president’s 2021 expanded child tax credit “sunset after just one year” and his “landmark investment in the child-care sector” has already lapsed as well. 

Additionally, the columnist noted that Biden’s health tax credits — which she mentioned brought the “uninsured rate to all-time lows” — expire in less than a year and “and Republicans are not expected to extend them.”

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As a result, “The uninsured rate is likely to revert,” Rampell predicted, adding that his food-stamp benefits expansion “looks likely to be rolled back soon.” Also, some of Biden’s other ideas, like eldercare and national paid leave, “never materialized at all.”

Rampell took aim at the president’s industrial policy, namely the “bipartisan infrastructure law, the Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act.”

Though she said the first two on that list may have some “staying power” because they had some GOP support, the columnist clarified their “impact has been more limited than the original hype suggested.”

The columnist reminded readers that the additional dollars Congress approved for the infrastructure law “have been eaten up by inflation.” The Inflation Reduction Act, she said, has been in the “GOP’s crosshairs for a while,” adding that Republicans have “already forced clawbacks of the law’s much-needed Internal Revenue Service funding.”

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Biden’s regulatory changes have been “muted,” as he issued “zero new major worker health or safety standards,” Rampell said, clarifying that the administration was expecting to finalize new rules in a second term. 

The columnist also went after Biden’s economic agenda for “lower- and middle-income Americans,” stating that although “the current U.S. labor market looks pretty great” and that wages for people of color and the least educated have “sharply increased,” “these demographics also suffered more from inflation.”

“But rightly or wrongly, a few years from now “Bidenflation” is likely to be what Americans remember of this hot-economy era, not its robust labor market,” Rampell declared.

She concluded the column, “Whatever effect Bidenomics has had, it’s likely to be – dare I say it – somewhat transitory.”

President Biden recently acknowledged concerns about his age and discussed his legacy in an interview with USA Today, still claiming he would have won another term if he’d run against Donald Trump but admitting he’s not sure if he could have lasted four more years.

“And so I hope that history says that I came in and I had a plan how to restore the economy and reestablish America’s leadership in the world,” the president said. “That was my hope.”