The sweeping $3.5 trillion budget package shows that hopes for an FDR-style presidency — shaped along the same contours, though smaller in scale — remains very much alive for Joe Biden. jonathanchait writes
President Biden on July 15. Photo: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images Harry Hopkins, a close adviser to Franklin Roosevelt, is said to have summarized the administration’s political strategy like so: “We shall tax and tax, and spend and spend, and elect and elect.” It worked quite well for the Democrats, well past FDR’s time.
As it turns out, the sheer size creates a kind of protection by reducing Biden’s agenda to a single vote. Some moderate Democrats from conservative states or districts might wish to position themselves to the administration’s right, but none of them can afford to let Biden’s presidency come crashing down in Congress.
Democrats in Congress appear to have learned the lesson. They are not bothering to engage in Potemkin negotiations with Republicans whose only goal is to take up time and gum up the works. Nor will they make the mistake of letting years pass before voters taste the fruits of Congress’s labor. The checks to parents, the first year of which was seeded in Biden’s quickly passed pandemic-rescue bill in March, are already going out the door.
Biden campaigned on a plan to raise $4 trillion over the next decade by taxing corporations, heirs, and households earning $400,000 a year or more. Not only do serious center-left economists think he can do this without creating a significant economic drag, so do serious center-right economists. Republican economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin calculates Biden’s tax hikes will shave a minuscule 0.2 percent off GDP over the long run.
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