During the 1980 presidential debate, Ronald Reagan posed the question “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” As COVID-19 cases exploded across America in 2020, President Trump said that he believed the coronavirus would “just disappear.” Meanwhile, top health officials warned that the country needed to do more to stop the spread. There needed to be a comprehensive plan, but Trump’s administration had no such plan.
It’s difficult to assess the precise number of deaths, but it’s clear that many people could have been saved had Trump’s response to the pandemic been coherent, urgent, and effective in 2020. Donald waved off economists’ prescriptions for preventing a coronavirus slowdown and the U.S. economy shrank 3.5 percent in 2020, the worst growth year since World War II.
President Biden believed that the federal government must act swiftly, and he pledged to let scientists and public health experts drive his administration’s COVID strategy. Biden also provided economic relief with his America Rescue Plan which provided direct relief, contained COVID-19 and grew the U.S. economy 5.7 percent in 2021, unequaled since 1984.
So, the answer to Reagan’s question is yes, we are better off today because dozing Donald botched the COVID-19 response and Joe didn’t.
