President Joe Biden had a choice to make. He could have chosen to clean up the property — in this case, the country — that the last tenant left in ruins, or he could have chosen to start over and build the place back better. Fortunately, he has chosen the latter.
First, he persuaded Congress to pass a $1.9 trillion relief package to repair the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed half a million lives, and the subsequent economic crash that has left millions more without jobs.
But Biden is not stopping there. His administration is considering an additional $3 trillion infrastructure and jobs package intended to rebuild and revitalize the economy.
He is expected to release the details soon. The package reportedly upgrades the nation’s transportation, energy and electronic infrastructure with an eye toward creating an economy equipped for the challenges of the 21st century and safeguarding the U.S. against the ravages of climate change.
A key feature of the proposed legislation would be its financing. The Biden administration would finance the legislation by implementing increases in the capital gains tax and income tax rates on Americans making more than $400,000 a year.
The big domestic spending package and the financing for the investments is a sharp break from Reaganomics, or trickle-down economics, which has been the coin of the realm in American economic policy for the last generation.
President Ronald Reagan is gone but his legacy lives on as dogma within the Republican Party. The GOP’s seem to think that the best way to help ordinary Americans is to give hundreds of billions of dollars to big corporations and wealthy Americans in the hope that those gifts will trickle down to ordinary people.
To try to pay for the tax cuts for big businesses and the rich, not to mention big spending for the military, Reaganomics starved programs that helped low- and middle-income Americans.
If Biden wants to be a transformational president who completely upends the status quo and builds America back better, the best thing he can do for his legacy and this country is to reverse and replace Reagan’s policies that were against middle- and low-income Americans.
Reaganomics left behind a massive federal budget deficit that was built on the tax cuts for bankers and billionaires and a level of income inequality between wealthy and ordinary Americans.
Trickle-down economics is still alive and well in the age of the coronavirus. The Trump tax cut is the most recent instance of trickle-down economics. The contrast between Trump’s first major legislative accomplishment and Biden’s is glaring.
The benefits of Trump’s economic plan went primarily to big business and wealthy Americans, while the first part of the Biden rescue package provides for $1,400 cash payments for low-and middle- income Americans. The next Biden economic recovery proposal would invest millions of dollars in programs that benefit ordinary Americans and make big corporations and wealthy Americans pay their fair share.
Trickle-down economics is down and out under Biden. Congressional approval of the American Rescue Plan Act was a significant first step in reversing the tide of trickle-down economics popularized by Reagan.
Passage of the Build Back Better plan might be the final nail in the coffin of failed Republican economy policy that should have died long ago before it did so much damage.
Brad Bannon is a Democratic pollster and CEO of Bannon Communications Research. He is also the host of a radio podcast “Deadline D.C. With Brad Bannon” that airs on the Progressive Voices Network. Follow him on Twitter @BradBannon.