Living in South America these past three months has led me to hear many stories of vote-buying and backhand payoffs, especially with the recent local elections in Peru. Uneducated and ill-informed farmers are paid off for their votes, leading to corrupt and falsified results in the country. You might think this is exclusively a South American problem, but you’d be wrong. What Biden has done over the last few months, namely excusing each person of $10,000 of student loan debt and pardoning all minor cannabis offenses, may not be as overt as what happens here, but it’s still buying votes nonetheless.
If Biden were to hand $10,000 to nearly 20 million Americans in exchange for their vote, alarm bells would be ringing and impeachment would be approaching. However, when disguised as the Student Loan Relief Plan, many commentators have turned a blind eye. Student loan debt is a massive problem in America, a four-year course costs close to $200,000, and it is an understatement to say people are desperate. Yet, as any good doctor would tell you, to fix a problem one should treat the disease, not the symptoms. Biden’s short-term economic handout will not make college education cheaper as a whole, won’t increase access and definitely won’t help those whose taxes increase to write off the debt. For example, if you were to apply for a college education today, this $10,000 does not help you.
Furthermore, Biden’s plan is massively benefiting higher earners, rather than those who genuinely need it. The median salary of a college graduate in the US was $52,000 in 2021, compared to only $30,000 for high school graduates. To me, a handout to those that earn on average more per year seems unfair, especially given that 34% of high school graduates don’t attend college for economic reasons. If you couple this with the fact that college graduates are almost twice as likely to vote as high school graduates, Biden’s scheme to relieve those with student debt appears to be an open vote-grab, especially with the midterm elections drawing near. In my eyes, a better solution in the long term would be to give such a handout to the Americans who need it the most, namely the 37 million people in the country living below the poverty line.
More recently, President Biden announced a pardon for thousands of Americans with marijuana possession. Heralded as not only a large step towards decriminalisation of cannabis, the change to the law is also seen as an important measure in addressing systemic racism in the American judicial system. However once again, this seems like a short-term solution to buy votes. Most convictions for marijuana happen at the state level, and so are unaffected by Biden’s pardon at the federal level. As of now, it does not mean that people caught in possession of the drug cannot be arrested, nor does it repair the clear racial bias in arrests for marijuana possession, for which Black Americans are four times as likely to be detained.
The issue of handouts before elections is not limited to the White House. Californian Governor Gavin Newsom has announced another round of tax rebates up to $1000 this month to help combat rising gas prices, following on from a $600 cheque sent out to Californians earning less than $75,000 before his recall election in 2021. Whilst Newsom will doubtlessly cruise to re-election in the Democratic hub of California, I can’t help but think it will aid his fellow candidates in their mission for re-election this year.
Obviously, the issue of vote-buying is not solely committed by the Democrats. Many see the tax cuts with no reduction on public spending promised by Republicans as a way to win voters, and Trump was the first to put his name to COVID relief cheques. However, Biden’s approval rating slumped to 42.5% just a month before his midterm elections, with signs the Democrats are to lose the House of Representatives and maybe even the Senate. This leads me to believe these latest relief reforms are a hail mary to claw back voters, rather than well-thought-through social and economic policies. I’m still waiting to see truly progressive policies from Biden, which aren’t quick bait for voters to get into the polling booth.