Tomorrow he will decide whether Biden really needs to give up the monumental twist in economic policy.

In addition to the US presidential elections in November, congressional elections were also held, where Democrats in the lower house won a landslide victory, according to polls. There were also elections in the Senate (upper house), a third of the seats were renewed (in the 100-member panel, 6-year seats are awarded on a rotating basis, and Americans vote for a third of the Senate seats each two years). The polls brought fierce competition here, and the vote has yet to be decided:

tomorrow two seats will be decided, which will also decide the size of the upper house.

The Senate electoral system

While citizens delegate to the House of Representatives roughly in proportion to the population, the Senate has an absolute characteristic of a federalist state system: each member state delegates two senators (regardless of size). The condition for the election is that the candidate for senator reaches 50% in the election. If this fails, the vote will be repeated.

Polls showed extremely fierce competition in the previously Republican-majority Senate in November, and we were also able to declare a Republican victory on Election Night, with 50 out of 100 seats Republicans must have won, Democrats 48 seats and two undecided seats. election: a repeat round will be held here tomorrow.

Both elections take place in Georgia, where Joe Biden surprisingly defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election: In an election, current Republican Senator David Perdue will compete with Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff. The other option is special because there is the battle for the vacant seat due to the resignation of Senator Johnny Isakson: on the Republican side, Kelly Loeffler is competing with Democrat Raphael Warnock. Republicans can taste doubly bitter: On the one hand, in the November elections, Perdue would have needed only 0.77% to retain his seat (and therefore the Republicans would have the majority for 2 years) and, on the other hand, the polls now measure the Democratic advantage in both places.

In the case of Loeffler, the situation is less clear, since in November several candidates were presented (the major parties did not have a single candidate), and there Warnock won only 32% of the votes, beating Loeffler by 7% While on the multiplayer field, we cannot draw a conclusion from this. Polls, on the other hand, measure Warnock’s advantage. Polls within the margin of error thus predict a Democratic victory in both elections, bringing the number in the Senate to 50-50. If that happens, the vote of the Senate president will be decided, and he is none other than Democratic Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

I mean, even though we saw very little chance of that in November, it is possible that the Democrats will win the Senate along with the White House and the House of Representatives.

Republicans only need to win 1 seat and have a guaranteed majority (the vice president usually does not have the right to vote unless the vote does not work). At the moment, it is impossible to predict the result of the election because the results of the polls are within the margin of error, on the other hand, the turnout is usually lower than in the first round.n – this further degrades the accuracy of the surveys.

Why is this important?

Democrats need a majority in the Senate because without it, Joe Biden’s large-scale plans would hardly materialize (not only does the upper house have a representative role in the United States, much of the law passes it, but it also has many discretionary powers). Biden promised a major paradigm shift in foreign affairs, such as a return to international organizations, but a Republican majority Senate can easily cross it here, as international conventions must also be approved by the upper house.

Another important area in which the Senate can pass the president is economic policy. Joe Biden made a series of promises to him, crafting a major economic policy program that would spark a complete paradigm shift in Trump’s right-wing economic policy:

• Biden would spend $ 1.7 billion on climate protection over 10 years, much of which would be infrastructure development and investment in technology.
• It would invest $ 300 billion in research and development,
• And with $ 400 billion in government purchases, it would provide targeted support to the US manufacturing industry.
• Additionally, health insurance reform would cost $ 750 billion over 10 years.

All of this, of course, has significant cost implications that the government would offer to cover by increasing tax revenue, generating a total of $ 4 billion in tax revenue growth over 10 years:

• increase the personal income tax rate from 37 to 39.6%,
• would raise the corporate tax to 28% (previously Trump lowered it to 21%, Sanders and Warren promised a tax rate of 35%).
• It would increase the tax on the income of companies abroad from 10.5% to 21%.
• The portion of capital gains in excess of $ 1 million would be taxed at the top rate of personal income tax (a tax that penalizes the wealthy is extremely rare in American history).
• In addition, it would impose a social contribution tax on income greater than $ 400,000 per year,
• and eliminate a series of tax exemptions and tighten the rules of tax avoidance.

But if the Senate remains a Republican majority, Biden is unlikely to forget these measures., because the Republican Party, which has oppositional attitudes (and is undergoing a shift to the right), would not vote for either a tax increase or an increase in budget spending, as this was one of the main campaign issues of the party. Of course, the election is also important for Republicans, as they could enforce their political goals with the majority and also block government activity to prevent Democrats from building political capital through individual measures.

Trump is sentenced

The Republican Party identity crisis is by no means a secondary issue in the election: two marked camps emerged within the party after the election. One group is the one that, organized around Trump, refuses to acknowledge electoral defeat: it is they who have constantly attacked the result with demands, count of requests. The other side is much more committed, more moderate, it has already distanced itself from the president’s statements even after the elections. The first also includes former presidential hopeful Ted Cruz (Trump’s former opponent in the pre-election), with prominent members of the other group, including presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Trumpists are even more dominant among Republicans right now, since the president is still in office, that’s not surprising. As Trump was active in the local news with the ongoing attack on the Georgian elections, analysts say the election is also a referendum on Trump – hif Republicans lose their November lead, it will clearly be a consequence of the president’s post-election behavior. In this way, the election could also pave the way for Republicans and decide whether the Trumpistas or the moderates will be in a dominant position in the coming years.

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