By John Ubaldi, “Ubaldi Reports”

Now that Joe Biden is the President of the United States, lingering questions remain one of which will he repeat history by replicating the mistakes of President Clinton and Obama when they first entered the White House.

Both Clinton and Obama began their first term with sizable control of both the House and the Senate, and with the executive branch in Democratic control, they misread their election win as a signal for an era of progressive politics of a larger federal government to be reinstituted.

Unfortunately, the American people refuted the notion of a larger role for the federal government, instead wanted economic growth. Both Clinton and Obama failed to focus on the issues most Americans wanted by embarking on reshaping the American healthcare system, one failed, the other succeeded. In the end voters sent a sharp rebuke of both at the midterm elections.

Clinton and the Democrats lost the House for the first time since 1954, and the Senate since 1986. Obama entered the White House with the largest Democratic majority in Congress since the 1970’s, but within two years the Republicans picked-up 63 house seats for the largest gains since 1938. Then Republicans gained nine Senate seats in 2014, to regain control of the chamber.

President Biden enters office with a thin Democratic control of both the House and Senate, but his progressive base wants sweeping fundamental change of the United States. Does Biden fail to learn from history and repeat the mistake made by both Clinton and Obama or does he govern as a moderate working across the aisle with Republicans?

Clinton entered the White House with the nation coming out of a recession, Obama became president in the midst of a severe recession caused by the housing collapse. Both Clinton and Obama misread their mandate instead of addressing the lack of economic growth both decided to embark on a massive progressive expansion of the federal government as it relates to healthcare.

Both were repudiated at the ballot box two years later, Clinton learned his lesson and triangulated to the center by co-opting many Republican ideas. Obama failed to learn why he was repudiated at the ballot box in 2010 and in 2014, and continued governing far to the left of what the American people wanted, and as a result, presided over the slowest economic growth since World War II.

Biden has stated his primary goal as president is to focus on COVID-19 and the economy. The question we don’t know will the progressive wing of the Democratic Party allow him to.

Unlike with Clinton and Obama, the progressive elements of the Democratic Party are far stronger today than in the past, more numerous in the upcoming Congress, and extremely eager to unleash their progressive agenda on America.

Throughout the presidential campaign Biden was able to distance himself from the more radical elements of his party by never having to be asked about the various socialist proposals of progressives such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All. This worked during the campaign, but will it work now that Biden is in the White House.

Now that Biden is president, he issued a slew of executive orders that were a political gift to progressives by ending the Keystone XL pipeline, and re-committing the United States to the Paris Climate Accord, and easing up on U.S. immigration asylum restrictions.

The revoking of the Keystone XL pipeline and ending energy extraction on public lands has cost thousands of blue collar union middle class jobs. This is not a great way to jump start the economy, plus will lead to increased energy costs for Americans.

Even his economic proposal he unveiled days before becoming president could be a signal that he has not learned the lesson of Clinton and Biden and has misread the results of the 2020 presidential race.

The 2020 presidential race was about the coronavirus, the economy, and Trump, with people voting against the former president not so much embracing Biden.

This also begs the question that all during the presidential campaign, Biden has stated he had a plan in dealing with the coronavirus, but his current remarks say something far different.

Recently Biden stated, as the virus continues, “there’s nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months.” This was far different then what he campaigned on!

The American people want the Biden administration to focus on his promise in addressing the virus, and the economy, not to embark on implementing progressive policies as a way to fundamentally alter all aspects of American society.

It seems Biden has failed to learn from history, as he unveiled his $1.9 financial stimulus plan which is eerily reminiscent of Obama’s which passed in the first few months, which was supposed to lift the economy, all it did was waste taxpayer money and prolong the economic recovery.

Biden has proposed $15 billion in relief grants to America’s Covid-crushed businesses, but then in the same plan outlines a proposal to save American businesses by advocating for a long cherished idea of progressives for a $15 an hour minimum wage.

Instead of helping, Biden would be exacerbating the devastating impact economic lockdowns have inflicted on small businesses across the country, and preventing the 10.7 million Americans who are currently unemployed from gaining employment.

Small businesses are currently hanging on by a thread in keeping their doors open with Congress recently increasing the funding, which are available under the Payroll Protection Program to close to $1 trillion in an effort to stay operational and pay employees.

If small businesses are barely hanging on and are having extreme difficulty just to pay their employees why impose a major wage increase which would essentially force them to close their doors.

In 2019, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analyzed a House bill that proposed raising the minimum wage to $15. It found that in the year the increase took effect it would reduce family income by nearly $9 billion due to the loss of about 1.3 million jobs, increased consumer prices and reduced economic growth.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, when President Trump took office in January 2017 the average hourly wage for American workers was $26. It increased to $28.69 by March 2020. Since April, it has never dropped below $29.32 and currently sits at $29.81. That is a 15% increase since 2017 and over 4% in just the last nine months.

On top of all this, almost all of Biden’s cabinet selections have progressive pedigree’s that will use the executive branch to impose higher regulatory costs on U.S. business, and raise taxes when businesses are least able to afford it.

Biden so far looks to be repeating the mistakes of Clinton and Obama, if he does the Democratic Party and Biden will be repudiated at the ballot box come November 2022.