[ad_1]
It’s only been three weeks since Joe Biden signed his massive $ 2 billion crisis package. Now he wants to implement another gigantic package of investment in infrastructure and domestic politics, for another two billion dollars.
When Joe Biden took office, enthusiasm was limited among those hoping for large-scale change in America. Instead, Biden promised a return to a fictitious “normal state” and talked a lot about “unity and” cooperation, “even though the core of Republican voters had just attempted to storm Congress and carry out a coup.
But after just over two months as president, it appears that Biden has a much higher level of ambition than many expected.
If he passes The new infrastructure package means he launches $ 4 trillion in federal investment during his first 100 days as president.
It’s an astronomical sum that says something about how quickly the political center in Washington has moved.
Biden Transportation Minister Pete Buttigieg, also known as a center-right Democrat with business experience and consulting firm McKinsey, describes Biden’s massive infrastructure investment as “common sense.”
Giant federal investments, in the billions of billions, have become the new standard.
Historian Michael Beschloss says these huge federal bills could mean Biden running into the two most ambitious Democrats in the 20th century White House, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.
Liberal Washington Post columnist EJ Dionne Jr. writes that Biden’s infrastructure package represents a “paradigm shift” in Washington.
“Since Ronald Reagan, a president never had such a clear vision,” writes The Economist.
The package complies, of course even harsh criticism. Republicans have criticized it as a state waste, but the argument lacks credibility as government debt and budget deficits plummeted to record levels during the administration of the last two Republican presidents. Donald Trump also campaigned for large-scale investments in infrastructure, a promise he never kept.
Bidens may now have the opportunity to implement parts of the economic policies that Trump promised as a candidate but never prioritized as president.
The investments are financed in part by tax increases on high-income companies and individuals, which has prompted strong protests from large companies and among financial press columnists.
Biden also receives criticism from left-wing Democrats and climate activists, who believe the package should be even bigger, especially when it comes to investments in green conversion.
“Biden’s infrastructure package would be his main initiative to address the climate crisis. That is far from enough, ”writes climate journalist Kate Aronoff in the New Republic.
Among the American people There seem to be more people who want bigger investments than those who care about the price of the package. Seventy percent of Americans say in a recent Morning Consult survey that they want to see bigger tax increases for the wealthy and businesses so that more large-scale investments can be made.
Economist Joseph Stiglitz, in turn, believes that Biden’s large-scale investments break what he describes as a vicious cycle that has existed in the American economy for decades.
– Inequality means that demand is too low and low demand means that we do not invest, so we have been in a vicious circle. But I’m optimistic that this can get us out of it and into a new period of more growth and more equality, Stiglitz tells the Axios news site.
– We will invest and spend on education and childcare. Instead of just giving the money to the very rich, we give it to the people who actually spend it, Stiglitz says.
There are a number of reasons to the fact that Biden appears to have more ideological leeway than expected as president.
For one thing, Donald Trump’s four years in the White House were marked by constant rule violations and extreme moves, meaning Republicans can no longer appeal to any notion of cooperation in the middle. Since then, the pandemic has undoubtedly widened the window for the politically possible, with a new and broad appetite for massive federal support measures.
In addition, Biden has a more energetic progressive movement in the rear, which clearly requires ambitious reforms.
Biden is now trying to sell the patriotism package: he presents it as a way for the United States to prevent China from traversing the country. The message is that the United States must make historic investments in research, infrastructure, new technology, green conversion, and new transportation projects nationwide, such as electric cars and high-speed trains, if the country is to remain a world leader.
Close negotiations waiting, where Biden must once again unite the 50 Democratic senators behind the package. Yet senators who have previously struggled with Biden, such as Kyrsten Sinema in Arizona and Joe Manchin in West Virginia, have every reason to support a package that could mean massive investment in their own states, which are in dire need of improvement. . infrastructure.
Manchin, who is often incorrectly described as a right-wing Democrat, managed at the last minute to convince Biden that the package would include more tax increases, in order to fund new investments.
In other words, even in conservative states, which have traditionally been skeptical of the influence of the federal government, Biden seems to be under pressure to do more, not less.
When Biden won the presidential election, journalist Anand Giridharadas wrote that his main political asset is that “everything he touches becomes a boring and moderate central politics.”
Precisely because everyone sees Biden as a shy center-right Democrat of the Washington system, ironically he seems to have had the freedom to widen the window into the political possible.
Read
