From the Right: Joe Biden is captive of the left

George J Marlin

Since the Democratic Convention adjourned in July, The New York Times and its media allies have been depicting Joe Biden as a “pragmatic moderate.”

True, there was a time when Sen. Joe Biden was something of a centrist.

In 1973, he criticized Roe v. Wade for going too far. He was an avid supporter of the Hyde Amendment, which prohibited the use of federal funds to pay for abortions.

During the Reagan years, he supported the Kemp-Roth tax cuts, voted for the president’s budget and tax reduction bill, and supported Reagan’s call for the line-item budget veto.

Biden boasted that the National Taxpayers Association rated him the “sixth most fiscally conservative senator.”

During the 1990s, Biden voted for the Clinton-Gingrich Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, which President Clinton declared “ended welfare as we know it.”

Biden was an enthusiastic proponent of the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act.

The Senate version of the bill, which approved funding to hire 100,000 new cops and $6.1 billion to build prisons, was drafted by Biden with the input of the National Association of Police Organizations and was known as the Biden Crime Bill.

However, this year Biden—succumbing to the pressure from the radical wing of his party—repudiated his support of the Hyde Amendment and the 1990s Welfare Reform and Crime laws. Drug addicts, he now holds, have a disease, hence “no one should be in prison because they use drugs.”

And contrary to his denial in the first presidential debate, Biden embraced a radical leftist platform that has been memorialized in the Biden-Sanders “Unity Manifesto.”

In that 110-page document, Biden agreed to support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s $93 trillion Green New Deal, which calls for the elimination of the use of all fossil fuels by 2035 and the immediate end of fracking.

Biden bought into Sander’s “Medicare for all” via an installment plan that would eventually drive private insurance companies out of business—and leave hundreds of thousands unemployed—because, as a Wall Street Journal editorial noted, “it would further inflate the cost of private plans by making them to pay more to compensate for the government’s underpayments to hospitals and doctors.”

The manifesto endorses free college tuition, free breakfasts, lunches and dinners for public school students, forgiveness of student loans, wealth redistribution, higher taxes, federal takeover of local zoning laws, defunding of the police departments, and the replacement of law enforcement officers with social workers.

It calls for the elimination of shareholder capitalism,  charter schools and cash bail.

After releasing the manifesto, Sen. Bernie Sanders boasted, “I think if those task force proposals are implemented … Joe Biden will become the most progressive president since Franklin D. Roosevelt.”

The Wall Street Journal agreed. An editorial called the Biden-Sanders manifesto, “the most radical policy document of either major party in our lifetime. It leaps to the left of the Obama administration on nearly every policy area, from education to taxes to climate change.”

Then there is the issue of the Supreme Court. Many Democratic members of Congress have called for adding more justices to the court to ensure it is dominated by leftists.

With public opinion surveys indicating that over 70 percent of Americans oppose packing the court, one would think Biden would state his position on the issue.

But that has not been the case.

When asked to tell the American people his take on the issue, he said, “They’ll know my position on court packing when the election is over.”

On another occasion, after a reporter asked Biden, “Well, sir don’t the voters deserve to know where you stand…”, Biden cut him off and said, “No they don’t.”

Since then Biden has backed off, saying he would give an answer before Election Day depending on how the Judge Barrett vote goes in the Senate.

Nevertheless, the Latin legal maxim is Qui tacet consentire —“Silence gives consent.” Hence, I can only assume Biden’s silence on the issue means he supports packing the court.

Joe Biden is not a “pragmatic moderate.” He has surrendered to the far left to obtain a lease on the White House. If elected, his administration will be dominated by big government bureaucrats intent on controlling every aspect of our lives.

Elections, like policies, have consequences. Voters should be prepared for the consequences of policies Biden will impose if they elect him president.

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