Bernie Sanders Has Pushed Joe Biden Pretty Far to the Left

Bastiaan Slabbers/NurPhoto via ZUMA

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In the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Jacob Schlesinger made a point that I’ve also made a few times before: Bernie Sanders may not be on track to be our next president, but there’s no question that he’s accomplished a big part of what he set out to do four years ago. Joe Biden might seem like the most moderate of Democrats, but he’s been pushed pretty far to the left:

On taxes, health care, climate change and labor rights, Mr. Biden proposes a significantly bigger government role than Hillary Clinton did during her 2016 presidential bid and what the Obama-Biden ticket advocated during their two White House campaigns.

….Mr. Biden proposes tax and spending increases equivalent to 1.5% of U.S. gross domestic product, more than double the level Mrs. Clinton advocated four years ago, and higher than the budget blueprints from the end of President Obama’s term, according to a recent study by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. “What’s being called moderate now would have been the far left eight years ago,” says Matthew Chingos, an education expert at the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

….The Biden proposal is more ambitious than Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 health plan. His would cost the government as much as $1.3 trillion, net, over 10 years, compared with $250 billion for hers, according to analyses by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. And the Biden plan goes beyond what Barack Obama envisioned in what ultimately became the Affordable Care Act. Among other differences, Mr. Biden would allow workers with employer coverage to buy into a government health-care plan—a concept neither Mr. Obama nor Mrs. Clinton raised.

“That’s a huge deal,” said Larry Levitt, executive vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation. He estimated that would mean millions more “low-and-modest-income workers could get substantial health-care cost relief.”

Joe Biden is obviously no Bernie Sanders. His policy agenda may be to the left of Hillary Clinton’s but his proposed spending level is far lower than Bernie’s. Still, even if Bernie didn’t get his revolution, you might say that at least he’s gotten a bit of a rebellion. Given the political inertia of a country the size of the United States, that’s not bad.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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