Putting Biden’s four years in the rear-view mirror

Few American politicians had such durable careers as Joe Biden, who won his first election to the U.S. Senate at almost exactly the minimum age (30) for the office. He would spend nearly four decades there, leaving only in 2008 to assume the vice presidency under Barack Obama. When he was bypassed in 2016 for Hillary Clinton as the Democratic Party’s nominee, it looked as though his dream of being president would vanish into the what-ifs of history. But in a period of political surprise (which now includes a third Donald Trump campaign and a second term for the billionaire celebrity), Biden emerged from retirement to win the presidency at the age of 78.

Once Biden reached the office he spent a lifetime seeking, what did he do with it? The record is not a positive one.

President Biden inherited the ongoing crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic. He fumbled it in two important ways. First, he tried to impose a mandate for vaccines that needed time to establish themselves as trustworthy to the public. Second, he continued to pour COVID relief money into the economy past the point where it was likely needed. Heavy spending on top of earlier COVID efforts helped spur the inflation that was probably the biggest factor in the Democrats’ loss to Trump in 2024. All Americans have felt the effect on their bottom line.

COVID was only one part of the general fiscal disaster the Biden administration presided over. By the end of his presidency, Biden’s administration racked up nearly $8 trillion of the total $36 trillion that comprise the national debt. Despite calls from the Federal Reserve for policymakers to reduce spending to help control inflation, the Biden administration seemed to have only one strategy, which was pushing down the accelerator. During Biden’s term in office, interest on the debt surpassed the amount spent on national defense, which is a fact the next administration must not ignore.

Despite the rapidly growing fiscal crisis, President Biden adopted an almost maniacal drive to cancel student loan debt. Although he was rebuffed by the courts (including the Supreme Court) time and again, Biden pushed to engage in massive cancellations of loan repayments. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that Biden’s debt cancellation plans would cost as much as $1.4 trillion, which is an eye-opening amount considering the entire national debt is $36 trillion. Besides the fiscal effect of Biden’s efforts, the plan ignored the U.S. Constitution. Presidents cannot unilaterally cancel the effect of legislation. Though Biden acknowledged as much early on, he still pressed forward as though American presidents are unchecked prime movers unbound by the separation of powers or the force of law.

President Biden damaged the office of the presidency in two significant ways. First, he made a special prime-time address for the sole purpose of attacking what he called “ultra-MAGA” forces. The speech did not break news, nor did it deal with policy. In essence, it was a political ad designed to improve his party’s standing in the 2022 midterm elections. Second, he created greater cynicism regarding politics in his treatment of his son, Hunter Biden. Although the president explicitly said that he would not pardon his son, who faced federal charges, he then did an about-face and extended an unusually broad pardon that covered some 11 years of past conduct. Such a comprehensive pardon only heightens concerns about the alleged Biden family influence peddling.

One of the biggest public issues of the last four years has to do with the management of immigration into the United States. While President Trump put the issue up front throughout his first term, President Biden charted a different course. In 2020, Biden practically invited a surge of immigrants and received a wave of millions in return. As the crisis bloomed, he tried to pull Republicans into bipartisan reform, but the reality is that illegal immigration is illegal. He had the power to do more to contain it. His own rhetoric had badly exacerbated the crisis.

There are so many consequential features of the Biden term worth discussing, but given space limitations, perhaps the best one with which to conclude is the controversy over transgender athletes. It is unusual to see an American president getting involved with sports, but President Biden’s administration acted as though biology was irrelevant as it sought to prevent schools and colleges from banning transgender athletes from competition. The vanguard has lost momentum after the election but may rise to the fore again in the future.

On the whole, President Biden’s four years were highly consequential but mostly negative. He used the power of the presidency to address the nation for partisan purposes, gave special favor to his son, disregarded the Constitution, and contributed to a serious debt crisis. The new president has a lot of work to do to undo that damage.