Biden at last week's Demcoratic debate

There would two portions of the Democratic debate last week that particularly stood out for me, both involving frontrunner Joe Biden. (Quotes from Read the full transcript of ABC News' 3rd Democratic debate ABC News 09/13/2019).

One was this exchange between Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.

SANDERS: Let us be clear, Joe, in the United States of America, we are spending twice as much per capita on health care as the Canadians or any other major country on earth.

BIDEN: This is America.

SANDERS: Yes, but Americans don't want to pay twice as much as other countries. And they guarantee health care to all people. Under my Medicare for All proposal, when you don't pay out-of-pocket and you don't pay premiums, maybe you've run into people who love their premiums, I haven't.

What people want is cost-effective health care, Medicare for All will save the average American substantial sums of money on his or her health care bill.

This is Amurca! Hail, yeah, we have inferior results at twice the cost! That's the Amurcan way of life! U-S-A!! U-S-A!!

The other was the much-discussed segment in which Biden shared some thoughts on race:

[Question from Linsey Davis of ABC News, an African-Amerian woman] Mr. Vice president, I want to come to you and talk to you about inequality in schools and race. In a conversation about how to deal with segregation in schools back in 1975, you told a reporter, "I don't feel responsible for the sins of my father and grandfather, I feel responsible for what the situation is today, for the sins of my own generation, and I'll be damned if I feel responsible to pay for what happened 300 years ago."

You said that some 40 years ago. But as you stand here tonight, what responsibility do you think that Americans need to take to repair the legacy of slavery in our country?

BIDEN: Well, they have to deal with the -- look, there's institutional segregation in this country. And from the time I got involved, I started dealing with that. Red-lining banks, making sure that we are in a position where -- look, you talk about education. I propose that what we take is those very poor schools, the Title I schools, triple the amount of money we spend from 15 to $45 billion a year. Give every single teacher a raise, the equal raise to getting out -- the $60,000 level.

Number two, make sure that we bring in to help the teachers deal with the problems that come from home. The problems that come from home, we need -- we have one school psychologist for every 1,500 kids in America today. It's crazy.

The teachers are -- I'm married to a teacher. My deceased wife is a teacher. They have every problem coming to them. We have -- make sure that every single child does, in fact, have 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds go to school. School. Not daycare. School. We bring social workers in to homes and parents to help them deal with how to raise their children.

DAVIS: Thank you, Mr. Vice President.

BIDEN: There's so much we -- no, I'm going to go like the rest of them do, twice over, OK?

(APPLAUSE)

Because here's the deal. The deal is that we've got this a little backwards. And by the way, in Venezuela, we should be allowing people to come here from Venezuela. I know Maduro. I've confronted Maduro.

Number two, you talk about the need to do something in Latin America. I'm the guy that came up with $740 million to see to it those three countries, in fact, changed their system so people don't have to chance to leave. You're all acting like we just discovered this yesterday. Thank you very much.

So, Biden reponded to a question about dealing with the legacy of slavery and white racism against blacks, Biden had two answers:

• Black people are bad parents
• I'll take in more refugees from Venezuela

That was a bad moment for Biden.

Digby Parton and Sam Seder discussed this moment on The Majority Report (Biden With Maybe Worst Reparations Answer Possible 09/13/2019):