There are questions that should be asked of our political leaders. If I were a journalist with the opportunity to interview Democratic nominee Joe Biden, here are some I would ask:
- Vice-President Biden, having selected Senator Kamala Harris as your running mate, what are the specifics of the role you see her playing in a Biden administration if you are elected President? Will you task her with a specific portfolio in a certain area, such as criminal justice reform? Or will you share responsibility in a more general way?
- Upon inauguration, you will face crisis-level circumstances due to the pandemic and the depression-like state of the economy. Obviously, besides the immediate actions required to address those issues, there will be much more to do to restore the public’s trust in the Federal government. You and Senator Bernie Sanders created a task force to develop policy recommendations in six major areas: the economy, health care, climate, education, criminal justice and immigration. Besides those, are there other items you might address concurrently as part of a reform agenda? In no specific order, I refer to items such as:
- Statehood for Washington DC
- Expanding the number of Supreme Court Justices
- Supporting the elimination of the filibuster in the Senate
- A comprehensive and constitutional-challenge-proof Voting Rights Act (John Lewis Voting Rights Act)
- Comprehensive and constitutional-challenge-proof campaign finance legislation
- Given the President's current campaign to weaken the Postal Service, would you undertake a program of restoration for USPS that includes rescinding the requirement that pensions be funded 75 years into the future? Do you support allowing USPS to perform certain basic banking services?
- An overhaul of the tax code with the goal of eliminating tax expenditures (credits and deductions) and restoring progressivity to the income tax
- Pushback against “capture” of regulatory agencies by the industries they are legally required to regulate
- Rebuilding Executive Branch agencies by appointing younger, public service-motivated persons to administer the Federal bureaucracy
- Do you have a plan to recover some of our standing on the world stage?
- Do you feel the world is a better place if the United States is in a leadership role? How do you plan to rebuild our relationships with our allies? How will you deal with economic rivalry with China and the ambitions of Putin’s Russia? In short, is the reinvigoration of American diplomacy a primary component of a Biden foreign policy?
- In the same vein, will you move to repair relations with our bordering neighbors, Canada and Mexico?
- Of course, how you would proceed depends not only on your own election, but the outcome of the House and Senate elections as well. Assuming you defeat Donald Trump and the Democrats retain their majority in the House, your ability to govern will depend on whether the Democrats wrest control of the Senate from the Republicans. As your experience during the Obama Presidency tells you, a Republican Senate, especially under the leadership of Mitch McConnell, will grind the legislative process to a standstill. How would you deal with that circumstance?
- Conversely, if the Democrats win the Senate and have unified control of the government, you may have to deal with competing interests within your own party in order to govern effectively. Are you planning for this situation?
- Donald Trump has used Twitter as a means of communicating directly to the public. Have you and your team considered how you might use various social media platforms to keep the public informed about their government?
- Finally, sir, do you play golf?
