$3.5 trillion is “a lot of money,” Democrat Jon Tester ventured.
That was one gem mined from a mountain of soundbites Wednesday, as US lawmakers weighed in on a sweeping Democratic proposal aimed at enshrining much of Joe Biden’s economic agenda into law without Republican support.
Don’t worry. Tester isn’t terrified. Well, as long as the money is allocated correctly and spread out, anyway. “It doesn’t scare me if it’s spent appropriately and over the right amount of time,” he remarked.
Read more: $3.5 Trillion To ‘Make Average People’s Lives Better’
Mitch McConnell was antagonistic, calling the budget plan “wildly out of proportion.”
But out of proportion to what, exactly? If ever there were a job that calls for trillions in federal expenditures, surely it’s retooling the US economy for what promises to be an epic race with an autocratic China, where decisions aren’t made on the basis of any popular consensus, but rather on what the Party decides is best.
America doesn’t have the luxury of waiting around on “the market” (broadly construed) to work things out. Over time, capitalism usually produces better, more efficient outcomes (e.g., cheaper space travel), but you can’t rely on it to provide public goods in the near-term. Nor can you be sure it’ll deliver urgent results when the only thing that matters is expediency.
I try to reiterate, at regular intervals, that what happened last summer in the US was the closest thing to societal breakdown the nation has seen in quite a long time. There were long lines at food banks, violent street protests, mass unemployment and a government crackdown on dissent that escalated to the aggressive clearing of protesters around the executive compound. When you lay it out like that, the situation was indistinguishable (in terms of checking boxes) to what transpires just before a failed state fails. Of course, the US was nowhere near actually “failing,” but in the context of wealthy, developed nations, the country was on the brink.
Part of the problem was the extent to which the pandemic laid bare myriad societal inequities which, while well documented, widely studied and ceaselessly maligned by academics, social justice advocates and Progressives, were just like any other list of grievances — prone to being back-burnered until some exogenous shock comes along and injects a sense of urgency.
The tragic irony is that the drudgery of daily life has a way of forestalling broad-based efforts to make things better. There are only so many hours in a day, and when you’re working two jobs to make ends meet, you don’t exactly have time to make a cardboard sign and go parading around the streets demanding change. However, a literal depression (with a “d”) has a way of galvanizing all manner of movements, even those that are only tangentially related to the crisis itself. In the case of 2020, that was especially true because tangentially-related movements were only tangential until it became apparent that the burden of the virus was foisted upon the people for whom daily life is a struggle based on the same, familiar list of grievances. Dry kindling, meet match, meet gasoline.
This is why it’s necessary for US lawmakers to expand their horizons when it comes to what counts as “infrastructure” and, relatedly, when it comes to assessing the proportionality (as McConnell put it) of spending vis-à-vis what the expenditures are set to fund.
I despise “us versus them” rhetoric, but I don’t mind discussing hegemony. The current geopolitical order is defined by a tenuous bipolarity. For now, China is clearly the weaker of the two superpowers. But for all the (increasingly ridiculous) pretensions to multilateralism, Xi quite plainly intends to make China unaccountable both from an economic and military perspective. In some respects, he’s already there. (Nobody, including the US, would chance open conflict with the PLA outside of some flagrant, Pearl Harbor-style provocation, which isn’t forthcoming.)
Economically, China’s rise is inevitable precisely for the reasons critics say it’s not. The very fact that China still isn’t, in many respects, an advanced economy, means there’s ample scope for development. At the same time, Xi is keen on next generation-type initiatives, including and especially state-funded technological advancement. China can thus execute on two fronts economically: Traditional development where it’s not yet completed, and 21st century development where it is. Its resources are essentially unlimited, execution isn’t hamstrung by any recalcitrant Joe Manchins and any forces seen as deleterious to societal cohesion are snuffed out with extreme prejudice.
America can’t compete with that juggernaut if its politics remain hopelessly fractious, if half its lawmakers would rather disenfranchise voters than adapt to shifting societal preferences, if corporations are deemed more important than people and if the electorate is so deeply divided that a prerequisite for accepting a dinner invitation from the new neighbors is confirming they voted for the same candidate as you.
Will $4 trillion fix all of this and put the US on a path to “winning the future,” as Biden clumsily puts it? In a word, “no.” But that’s not the point.
The point is that passing socioeconomic legislation with a price tag that would’ve been unimaginable just a few years ago, would be an acknowledgment that the country needs an overhaul aimed not just at doing the bare minimum (e.g., fixing bridges and ports) but at restoring at least some semblance of dignity and financial security to the ever-expanding number of citizens for whom life is increasingly not worth the trouble.
I’d reiterate that Democrats’ plan will benefit (perhaps even disproportionately) Donald Trump’s base. And that’s more than fine. Economic precarity was one reason they were desperate enough to elect a demagogue in the first place, and had they been better educated, they wouldn’t have been enamored with his tacky, bumper-sticker jingoism.
On Wednesday, Joe Manchin said he’s “open” to the $3.5 trillion budget blueprint, but said he wasn’t consulted on the initial proposal. “We’re going to have to pay for all this,” he said.
And America will pay for it. If it doesn’t get done.
I ride my bicycle by those people living in ten cities down by the river. A quick calculation indicates to me these people are better off than if they had a job at 15 dollars an hour. A one-bedroom apartment here runs 1200 to 1400 per month. Down by the river they pay nothing, and get free food. As an expensive Medicare state they also get good health care.
If they get a job they likely need a car and insurance. They also need better clothing and have to wash it more often.
You can see a few bicycle parts scavenging businesses down there. Trading bicycle repairs and parts for who knows what. I didn’t seen a few barbecue smokers. The social opportunities of a shared sacrifice is something few in the suburbs get
In all it looks to me like they’re making a very rational choice. One that is soon likely many other people will make due to the ending of eviction moratoriums. Once there they will not likely leave even with biden’s plans.
So I think rather than wildly disproportionate, not sufficient, and not directed at the people who need it most is more likely.
The pandemic was a deflationary event that tore through whatever meager social safety net was left for the bottom 50% of the population. As Rahm Emanuel once said, never let a crisis go to waste. This is an opportunity to help the bottom 50% and even the bottom 90%. It is worth a try. Biden is doing a very good job so far. If the bipartisan package and the Democrats only reconciliation package make it to his desk, the Democrats will have a midterm platform to run on. An electoral spanking for the GOP would be much more likely in that event. We can only hope.