Editorial of the “World”. Joe Biden wants to transform America, and he wants to do it fast. The one Donald Trump nicknamed “Sleepy Joe” during the election campaign surprises today by the boldness and speed with which he connects colossal spending plans. After the 1,900 billion dollars (1,615 billion euros) announced in March to revive the economy, it plans to invest 2,250 billion more to renovate infrastructure and, in the process, some 1,000 billion euros. additional dollars to help families. The new Democratic president is not afraid to do too much; it enjoys the support of Americans, satisfied with the vigorous vaccination campaign.
And, above all, the wind has turned across the Atlantic. The time has passed for the liberal creed of the Reagan era. The pandemic marked the big comeback of the federal state. Behind Joe Biden’s huge Keynesian gamble, the lines of economic thinking are shifting. The theory of “runoff” dear to Donald Trump, by virtue of which the gifts to the richest benefit everyone indirectly, is no longer the wind in its sails: Joe Biden wants, among other things, to raise the corporate tax by 21% to 28%. Likewise, the theory that an economy pushed to the point of overheating sees prices soar no longer makes policymakers back down. These massive plans will allow the United States to submit this doctrine to a full-scale test.
Social protection
Are these investments, which have yet to receive the approval of Congress, as revolutionary as their promoters suggest? A third of the $ 2,250 billion, spent over eight years, will be devoted to transport infrastructure, the second third to industry, communications networks and housing, and the last third to home care. A large chunk of this money will make up for the decades of underinvestment that followed the Reagan years. Like bridges, America’s road and rail systems are in dire condition.
If these expenses are supposed to be colored by an environmental concern, the section devoted to the energy transition is nevertheless lacking in ambition. The Biden plan is not the promised “Green New Deal”: it offers neither a high carbon price nor a fuel tax likely to significantly accelerate the green revolution.
In reality, the revolution is elsewhere: the popular and middle classes are put back at the heart of public concerns. They are the ones who, for twenty years, have suffered the consequences of deindustrialization and the automation of jobs. Donald Trump wanted to respond to their distress with protectionism. Joe Biden, he takes advantage of the emergency resulting from the damage of the Covid-19 pandemic to weave the social protection nets that his country lacks.
In addition to the $ 1,400 checks distributed to adults earning less than $ 75,000 per year, he plans to invest in housing and health for the most vulnerable, improve digital coverage in rural areas, rethink tax credits for daycare workers. children so that they benefit especially the poorest, or reduce the cost of health insurance for the less well-off. Other social measures will be unveiled in the coming weeks. If he succeeds in his bet, Joe Biden will indeed have turned the economic page of Reaganism. And, undoubtedly more important for him, that of Trumpism.
