Biden’s 2009 Lessons for Now: Spend Big, No Coddling Wall Street
- Infrastructure, clean energy were his focus then and now
- Biden won’t shy from taxes or deficit increase to meet goals
When Joe Biden entered the White House as vice president in 2009, the country was in economic turmoil caused by a global financial meltdown. The new president, Barack Obama, gave Biden a leading role in the economic recovery -- and Biden’s approach then shows a former senator struggling to find middle-ground solutions that might anger people, but not alienate them.
Biden was willing to risk the wrath of Wall Street with his support for the Volcker Rule and other banking regulations, but didn’t embrace punitive demands from the left to break up big financial institutions. He fought to save third-ranked Chrysler Corp. when others on Obama’s team thought the carmaker should go under, because he feared the economic carnage of those lost jobs. He also focused on reviving manufacturers, clean energy and infrastructure, and on monitoring how the states were spending stimulus dollars.