Today’s column compares President Biden’s legislative accomplishments with what progressives wanted when he took office with a Democratic Congress.

Among the items on the progressive to-do list were an expansion of the Supreme Court, statehood for places expected to vote for Democrats, a higher minimum wage, higher income-tax rates on high earners, a federal overhaul of election law, an amnesty for illegal immigrants, a ban on assault weapons, federal Medicaid funding for abortion, and measures to increase union membership. None of it has happened.
When the New York Times endorsed Biden in 2020, the first two policies it mentioned in praising his “bold agenda” were his plans to create a government-run insurance option for middle-class Americans of working age and to lower the age of eligibility for Medicare to 60. Both, the Times cheered, would move us toward “universal health care.”
Neither even made it to a vote. . . .