Biden: My Time

"When other folks get dizzy, I keep busy, bidin' my time." -- George & Ira Gershwin, 1930

   Corona virus fears have kept many Americans at home rather than attending crowded political rallies. And unlike the incumbent president, who is actively campaigning for re-election and seems to need massive rallies to stoke his ego, Democratic candidate Joe Biden stays home and only gives an occasional speech, most recently via computer to web sites and broadcasters.
   In this time of crisis, economic as well as physical health issues have become key issues for American voters and their families. But to ignore one and misrepresent the other would be hazardous to any candidate's political health, yet that seems to be just what the incumbent is doing.
   Biden, however, acknowledges the importance of both, wearing a face covering in public even as he offers a plan for economic recovery from the most serious recession to hit the nation since 2007 during the administration of Republican President George W. Bush.
   Biden took office as vice president under President Barack Obama in January 2009, and the economic crisis was over some six months later, beginning the longest period of growth in American history.
   And despite the current administration's claim of creating the prosperity, the reality is that Donald Trump inherited a healthy economy. "We  created the best economy in 30 years," Trump supporter Steven Moore said in an interview on Fox news. His associate Hogan Gidley, the Trump campaign's national press secretary, said that "We don't need to guess what a Biden economy would look like, since Americans have been forced to live through it already. Biden's policies caused the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression" of the 1930s.
   Fact check: Biden was not president during the recovery, which took only six months. He did, however, have some responsibility for economic policy during the Obama Administration, and this led to the long period of growth. The Trump administration did not "create" this "best economy," but rather inherited it. Recovery from the Great Depression was led by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who inherited the crisis from Republican President Herbert Hoover.
   Now the issue facing voters is who would be better qualified to lead the nation back to economic as well as physical health; the candidate with experience in dealing with an economic crisis, who acknowledges the reality of a virus pandemic and urges everyone to take precautions, or the candidate who claims credit for an economic recovery that began before he took office, who denies the existence of a widespread death toll from a virulent disease, and who refuses to obey a subpoena asking for details about his business dealings. He insisted that 99 percent of those affected by a covid 19 infection recover completely. Meanwhile, more than 130,000 Americans have died from the disease.
   The choice is yours: A candidate with extensive experience in dealing with an economic crisis, or one who denies its existence and issues get-out-of-jail cards to his buddies who have confessed to a wide range of crimes.