Analysis: The utter radicalness of Joe Biden’s presidency
(CNN)Joe Biden has been president of the United States for a little over eight months now. And he may well be on the verge of radically overhauling the relationship between the federal government and the average American in ways that will linger well beyond his first (or even second) term.
Consider this:
* Congress passed — and Biden signed into law — the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan.
* The Senate passed — and the House is debating — a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure deal that would fund much-needed repairs and updates on roads and bridges (and the like).
* Senate and House Democrats are considering a budget bill that is likely to total somewhere between $1.5 trillion and $3.5 trillion — probably closer to the lower number, if I had to make an educated guess — in additional spending.
Add it up and, on the conservative end, you get almost $4.5 trillion in additional government spending in the first year of Biden’s first term.
And it will add massive sums to the federal budget deficit. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the bipartisan infrastructure bill will add more than $250 billion to the deficit. In March alone, the federal government spent $660 billion more than it took in — largely due to provisions of the American Rescue Plan.
Here’s some context for those massive sums: In October 1981, after two centuries of deficit spending, the national debt hit $1 trillion. The current national debt is more than $28 trillion.
Biden and his allies will insist that this massive outlay of federal spending is necessary as the country seeks to get back on its collective feet following almost two years of shutdowns and slowdowns due to the coronavirus pandemic.
And that may be true! But it doesn’t change the fact that if Biden gets anything close to what he wants out of the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the budget package, he will have remade the role government plays in the lives of its citizens.
The Point: Biden campaigned as a return to normal business in the 2020 election. But his expansive domestic agenda — and its mighty price tag — is anything but vanilla.
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~3/bTDhAIAWjkw/index.html
