What Did Biden Ever Do For You?

by Shawn K. Inlow

Last weekend, I posted this article, which explained how the Trump administration was getting ready to steal all the money for themselves and all their rich buddies while telling us all that they were looking for theft and fraud. See, the deception is that we're gonna steal all the money and tell you we're making America great again. Which is true if you are rich like us. Today, I'm going to show you an example of bad thinking. I've been doing a series of columns over on X+Y on critical thinking and good mental hygiene and I want to highlight a bad mental habit called "whataboutism." So I wrote a column detailing the ongoing ginormous theft that the republican party was doing while telling you they were looking for all that corruption. So a good friend of mine responds vigorously in the comments with, paraphrasing here, "Well, what did Biden ever do for you?" He then answered his own question with comments that, again paraphrasing, Biden was senile and it was a terrible thing and he should be investigated. Never mind that my friend's comments precisely mirrored the talking points on Fox News from last week and for the last several months. We have already established that Fox News is a death trap for critical thinking.

Mind, instead, that the word "Biden" appears precisely once in an article consisting of 1,641 words and that the article had nothing to do with Joe Biden. Rather than commenting about an article which legitimately charges republicans with an impending theft of a magnificent scale, my friend, in a classic example of whataboutism responds about something that wasn't at issue in the article. This is bad thinking. This is what we're on about around here.

If I was also a bad thinker, and I wanted to fight with my friend, I'd say something like, "Well what about Melania? Trump's 15th wife doesn't even like him anymore." And then my friend would hit me with a mud ball and I'd respond with another and in an exchange of seven comments we'd have said something we regret and then have difficulty patching things up.

If I wanted to respond to my friend's comment, never mind that it was not germane to my content, and I was a critical thinker of sound mental hygiene, I would not throw a mud-ball. No, I would not. What I might do is assess the question, located in the headline at the top, and prepare an answer that addresses the question. I might point out that Joe Biden, when he took office in the year 2020, was inarguably the most experienced man to ever enter the office. He had one of the longest tenures in government, having served as a senator and a vice president for decades, working in the halls of the Capitol making friends on both sides of the aisle.

Biden was one on the side that held that government was for the good and was there to accomplish big things that individuals could not accomplish and that the goal was to make Americans' lives better.

His detractors come from a long line of Reaganites, Neo-Cons and con-artists who believe quite differently. Reagan famously said in 1986, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government, and I'm here to help." This became core conservative curricula and over the decades since has devolved into caricature.

I'm'a digress here. I've always wondered why you would vote for someone who either A) doesn't believe government has a role in our society or B) has outright contempt for the function of government. In order to vote for someone like that, you'd have to be either a wealthy industrialist or one of those idiocratic militiamen running around in the woods of Michigan waiting for the boogaloo to come down. Anyone else would probably be strapped down in a chair with his eyes clampled open watching Fox.

You can compare the ideologies, friends. And you can see the record. The trouble, I think, many of my friends have, is that they cannot clearly remember where we were during the first Trump administration, nor can they see clearly where we are in the second and how we got here. Biden's efforts leading the country can be broken down into three broad categories of achievement: Response to the COVID pandemic, Building out American infrastructure on a broad scale and Foreign Affairs wins.

Let's look first at COVID. While it is fair to give the Trump administration credit for Operation Warp Speed, which fast tracked development of new styles of vaccine, one must also lay blame on Trump for his ineptitude in understanding and responding to the pandemic. In fact, though his life was saved by the health system, he fought against CDC and HHS recommendations tooth and nail. It is implausible these agencies would have been able to develop such treatments given the way the current Trump administration is dismantling those agencies and gutting science and education today.

So. Just spitballing here. Wait until the bird flu jumps to mammals and watch how the Trump administration's eviceration of our health system comes back to haunt us.

Biden entered office in the midst of the worst pandemic in a century and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Nearly a million workers had lost their jobs as COVID closed businesses, kept kids out of school and killed thousands of Americans every day. But Biden, believing in the power of government and how to use it, quickly responded by mounting a vast push that got 200 million Americans vaccinated in the first hundred days of his administration. My friends might be longing for those days when the Trump price of gas was $1.77 per gallon. And they might blame Biden for the current $3.50 (which it still is under Trump). But my friends might not be remembering the vast fuck-up of the Trump presidency in dealing with the COVID outbreak that led to societal lockdown. Of course gas was cheaper. Nobody was going anywhere. See, you can't have one fact without the other. Things are complicated and my Trump friends' minds, I am convinced, have been damaged because they got COVID more times than anyone else.

Let's have a look at Biden's American Rescue Plan -

It invested $160 Billion to provide supplies, emergency response, testing and the public health workforce to stop COVID.

Provided relief to 15,000 school districts to reopen safely

Delivered immediate support for families including enhanced unemployment insurance benefits for millions of Americans temporarily out of work, lowered taxes for working Americans by increasing the Earned Income Tax Credit for 17 million workers, and provided checks of $1,400 per person (you remember getting those, right?) for most Americans.

The Homeowner Assistance Fund helped prevent mortgage defaults, foreclosures and evictions for millions and kept millions more hard pressed renters suddenly out of work from being evicted.

Expanded the Child Tax Credit, leading to the lowest child poverty rate in American history.

Supported a quarter of a million child care programs, which lowered the cost of child care and helped speed women back into the workforce.

Lowered or eliminated health care premiums for lower and middle income families, leading to record breaking health insurance coverage nationwide, just when it was needed.

Delivered more than $28 Billion to help keep 100,000 restaurants open. Oh wait, there's more. During the Biden Administration the U.S. economy grew at 12.6% and added 16.6 million jobs and achieved the lowest average unemployment in 50 years. The strong labor market led to better pay as after-tax income grew by $4,000, the strongest real wage growth in half a century. And wealth, adjusted for inflation, rose a record 37% for the median American household.

Moving on to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law... And when I say bi-partisan, it wasn't very bi-partisan. Only 19 republican senators joined 50 democrats in support of the bill. In the house, only 13 representatives voted for the bill. Two hundred republicans, many of whom crowed in the media about the projects it would fund in their districts, still voted against the "bipartisan" infrastructure bill that they were taking credit for.

The "Bipartisan" Infrastructure Law has put $600 Billion into 72,000 specific infrastructure projects nationwide that will provide construction jobs far into the future. It'll fix roads and bridges (Like locally, Main Street in Bellwood has had its water and sewer pipes fixed and the road resurfaced so it's not that bumpy piece of shit it was. Thanks, Joe Biden! And the I-99 Corridor through Altoona is getting a face-lift where lanes and ramps will be added and improved. Thanks, Joe Biden!) and remove led water pipes from water systems all across America. It'll rebuild or repair more than a dozen of this country's most economically significant bridges and replace tens of thousands of smaller bridges across the country.

Now I'm'a digress a bit before we talk about the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. It was a bill that ZERO republicans voted for. Given that this country came out of a hellish situation in a way that by most accounts led the world economy. You all were bitching about it. You got money sent to you. You got child tax credits that helped every month until republicans pulled the plug on that one. You got lower cost health care because COVID. You got better paying jobs. So, the last time I was listening to you, you dumb bastards were forgetting all that was done to get us here safely and were bitching about... hold on... I have this right.... the price of eggs. Oh, yes. And immigrant rapists were coming to replace white people. That's the thanks you get, Joe Biden. So, yes, inflation happened. In a pretty predictable pattern, when Americans were given more money to get by, businesses and utilities hurried to up their prices while there was money to get. Because, in the end, if Americans get any breathing room, you can bet the goddamn electric company, the oil and gas lobby and everybody else will be jacking up their rates. I watched it happen. I had a little place in Philipsburg called the LaunchPad. But when my electric and cost of gas (which we have a lot of in central Pa) doubled, I couldn't even afford to go downstairs to pay the marginal increases at the lunch counter. Drove me out of business. Not that I was this genius business man. But I'll tell you this: Those prices are not coming back down any time soon. Once the price of your sandwich goes up $1? The price is not coming back down $1. So you blame that on Joe Biden when the alternative would have been a crushing collapse of the economy that would have made the Great Depression look like a nice day in Central Park? SURE you do.

Trump said he would fix this all on day one.

Still waiting, here.

The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is kind of misnamed. Though there are bits of anti-inflamatories for Inflation, the bill does a LOT... more than any other country anywhere... to address Climate Change and its associated costs and problems.

Because of this law, the United States is now in position to spur renewable energy and cut climate pollution by over 50% by 2030 and over 60% by 2035 compared to 2005 levels. The U.S. is set to achieve a net-zero economy by 2050. And, you know, that's something I worry about every day. With all the wild fires and tornadoes and storms of the century coming one after another.... It sincerely worries me... Every day.

And you know what else? My J and I have been able to put solar panels on not one but two houses, reducing our carbon footprint and our electric bill to almost nada while inflating the value of our homes by about $100 K each. Tax rebates, thanks to Joe Biden, have been a real relief. And that doesn't just help us. It helps everyone else. Penelec gets an electric supply at lower than wholesale, so they don't have to tear the tops off your mountains anymore to mine coal and destroy all your fishing streams. And when we have an outage in the next climate spurred super storm? We've got a battery backup. Thanks, Joe Biden. But, for all my Trumper bad-thinker friends, don't worry. Trump will fuck it all up. And what he doesn't fuck up, he'll try to take credit for. Now... the Inflation Reduction Act DOES actually cut costs. Check THIS out! As of June 2025, Medicare has successfully negotiated lower prices for 10 prescription drugs. These negotiated prices are set to take effect on January 1, 2026. The selected drugs include treatments for conditions such as diabetes, heart failure, and cancer, and they represent some of the highest expenditures in Medicare Part D. This will save taxpayers $6 Billion on prescription drugs and consumers $1.5 Billion in out of pocket costs in 2026 alone.

In addition to these, Medicare has identified 15 more drugs for the next round of negotiations. Negotiations for these drugs are scheduled to occur this year, with the new prices becoming effective in 2027. So all this good can happen to you during Trump's term.

Furthermore, the Inflation Reduction Act includes provisions for the Medicare Prescription Drug Inflation Rebate Program. This program has led to cost savings on over 120 drugs since April 2023, by penalizing manufacturers that increase prices faster than inflation.

Currently, 65 million seniors and other Medicare beneficiaries are benefitting from $35 insulin, free recommended vaccines, and an annual out-of-pocket cost cap of $2,000 per year. Thanks, Joe Biden!

Now for the CHIPS and Science Act.

At the beginning of the Biden Administration, the United States produced only 10% of the world's computer chips and semi-conductors. Through the CHIPS and Science Act, $50 Billion has been invested in facilities across 21 states. All five of the world's most advanced chip manufacturing companies now operate in the United States. No other nation has more than two. So the U.S. can expect to be a leader in chip manufacturing and development competing successfully with countries like China. In foreign affairs, Joe Biden publicly shared intelligence that Russia was about to invade Ukraine. He quickly banded together European allies and led the strengthening of Ukraine despite Donald Trump's long efforts to undermine the struggling democracy and support Russia. Had Biden not led the resistance and provided aid (with bipartisan support, it should be added) Ukraine would not exist today.

Sadly, that war continues, with Trump constantly capitulating to Vladimir Putin's wishes. And in a despicable act of treachery, Trump even claims that Ukraine started the war and pushes Ukraine to accede to Putin's demands. And lastly, I'll say this: Joe Biden stood up for working people. He is the only U.S. president who ever walked a picket line. Let that sink in when you're talking about Trump being good for the economy. Ask yourself: The economy for who?