Politics & Government
Biden needs to shine at debate
Curry says middle class 'can't afford a movie and pizza on a Saturday night'
By Scott Benjamin
He debated William F. Buckley on Firing Line, talks on the phone regularly with Ralph Nader and Gail Collins, has been friends with Congressman Joe Courtney since Jim Lonborg won the Cy Young, lost twice to Gov. John Rowland and worked in the White House for two years for Bill Clinton as he was securing his second term.
What are the prospects for a second Joe Biden term?
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Bill Curry says to change the dynamics of a race that based on recent polls is leaning toward the challenger, the Democratic president “needs a strong, robust performance” in the June 27 debate on CNN with former Republican President Donald Trump.
“I’m pleasantly shocked that there will be a debate in June. It will be one of the only times that Biden can get through the wall of Fox News and the right-wing media that ignores all the good news about Biden,” exclaimed Curry, who was the Democratic candidate for governor in 1994 and 2002.
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‘It is that rare opportunity to speak directly to the everyone, “ he added. “He needs to make the most of that. I think that Biden’s age remains a very, very difficult political issue,” noting that the president will turn 82 years of age later this year and has been characterized as being feeble.
Patrick Healy, The New York Times Deputy Editor of Opinion, recently wrote that Biden’s approval ratings are in the same league with Trump, George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, in the spring of their re-election years, and each of them were denied a second term.
However, at minimum, Curry is confident that Biden will again carry Connecticut, where he annexed about 60 percent of the vote in 2020. No Republican presidential nominee has prevailed in the Nutmeg State since H.W. Bush in 1988.
“Nothing I see tells me that the dynamics are much different than they were in 2020,” he said in a phone interview with Patch.com.
Curry, who worked for Clinton through 1995-1996, said, “I view Trump as a criminal and as mentally unstable” – an apparent reference to the former president’s conviction on 34 counts in a court in New York City.
He said that Trump’s goals are “totalitarian,” but that “about half of the country is buying that hook, line and sinker.”
Yet, Trump is on the verge of becoming the Republican nominee for a third straight cycle.
Why is he so popular?
Said Curry, “I don’t think that I have an answer. As a member of the Democratic Party, I’m willing to take our share of the blame” regarding the downward plight of the middle class.
He explained, “In the aggregate, the economy is doing fine. The middle class is not doing fine. It is the first middle class – since Franklin Roosevelt invented the modern middle class – to have almost no disposable income. This is a middle class that can’t afford a movie and a pizza on a Saturday night.”
“We have to fix what is wrong in this system regardless of how well the recovery is going,” Curry remarked. “The Trump proposals will only make things worse. But until we enact better policies, Trump’s rhetoric will outweigh the field.”
Richard Rubin and Alex Leary of The Wall Street Journal have reported that among Trump’s unorthodox economic proposals is a call to make tip wages exempt from the federal income tax.
In an e-mail interview, Curry stated, “What percent of tip income do we think is even reported today? Would the workers still pay their Social Security taxes? If not, who would? Do we exempt servers in high end restaurants, some of whom make a hundred grand a year and more? Trump won't say, but will anyone say how he'd pay for it?”
Curry added, “I'm not opposed. We must find ways to get tax relief to the middle class. But Trump treats his own ideas as mere public relations. This, on a smaller scale, is like the much bragged on infrastructure and health care bills Trump ran on in 2016 and then never even bothered to draft. So I'm exceedingly reluctant to treat it like a serious proposal and not just another misdirection ploy.”
Bob MacGuffie of Fairfield, the convention-endorsed Republican candidate in the Fourth Congressional district, stated in an e-mail interview with Patch.om that, “I think tips for personal services are private personal gifts to someone for their care in serving us. Its person-to-person. I think the nation can afford to let tips be simply tips".
Trump also has called for further lowering the corporate tax rate, which was reduced during his presidency from 35 percent to 21 percent.
Said Curry, “I’m not so radical that I want to return to the [higher] tax rates of Dwight Eisenhower,” remarked Curry, “I just want to return to the tax rates of Bill Clinton.”
“Under the Eisenhower, the Clinton and the Obama-era tax rates the economy did remarkably well,” said Curry.
Biden’s National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard has proposed canceling the 2017 Trump tax cut for the ultra-wealthy, when it is set to expire in 2025, and increasing corporate taxes so that the Trump tax cut for the middle class could continue.
Curry agrees: “It would help finance the social contract and get the government out of debt.”
In her 2016 book, “Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again,” Elaine Kamarck of the Brookings Institute wrote that many times presidents spend too much time talking and not enough time governing.
Curry said that hasn’t been the case with Biden.
“You can’t fault Biden for getting work done,” said Curry. “I’m as surprised as anyone about the amount of legislation that he has gotten approved – from the CHIPS [semi-conductor] Act to infrastructure. He is personally involved and giving direction.”
“I was never drawn to him as a candidate for a whole set of reasons,” he added. “However, you have to be impressed with the time he has spent on foreign policy in his career. When he has spoken on foreign policy, he has demonstrated a reach and genuine knowledge. It has been clear that you are listening to someone who has done his homework and memorized it. He understands the dynamics of global leadership and the players.”
Curry explained that if Biden is able to achieve his proposed mutual security pact for Israel in the Middle East, “It will be the most successful foreign policy presidency in half a century.”
Perhaps part of the hesitancy about giving Biden a second term is the unfavorable ratings in the polls for Vice President Kamala Harris.
However, Curry said he believes Harris has grown in the job over the last three and a half years.
“I have not been a big fan, but my honest judgment is that she has progressed beyond expectations,” he remarked. “Her reputation creates a problem for Biden, but her performance has become an asset.”
Curry added, “Her reputation will catch up to her performance.”
Among the candidates that Trump is considering for the Republican vice presidential nomination are U.S. Sens. Tim Scott of North Carolina, J.D. Vance of Ohio, Marco Rubio of Florida and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
“No one like Mike Pence is under consideration,” said Curry, referring to the former Indiana governor who served as vice president under Trump from 2017 to 2021 and has been lauded for his actions during the January 6, 2021 insurrection on Capitol Hill.
Curry commented, “There is no one that Trump can choose who would widen his appeal. I don’t think that his vice-presidential selection will make much of a difference.”
Resources:
Phone interview with Bill Curry, Patch.com, on Thursday, June 13, 2024.
E-mail interview with Bill Curry, Patch.com, on Sunday, June 16, 2024.
E-mail interview with Bob MacGuffie, Patch.com, Friday, June 14, 2024
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-vetting-vice-presidential-candidates.
Elaine Kamarck, “Why Presidents Fail And How They Can Succeed Again,” 2016.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/donald-trump-tax-plans-election-2024-17
