Joe Biden’s Big (But Not Big Enough) Bet on America

Can America join the modern world, rebuilding its decaying bridges and highways and creating a climate-crisis infrastructure of electric car stations and renewable energy facilities – while energizing a diverse, unionized workforce as the “backbone” of national prosperity? Joe Biden’s $2 trillion plan is truly transformative. And, of course, the Republican Party and its corporate masters have already denounced the plan, since it would be subsidized by a partial rollback of the huge Trump corporate tax cut. Republicans have already formed a group called the Coalition to Protect American Workers to fight Biden’s Build Back Better bill. (Don’t you love the Republican use of Orwellian language? They’re always naming things the exact opposite of what they truly are – in this case an organization to protect the wealthiest Americans.)

In our new Alice in Wonderland world, Washington Democrats have actually grown spines. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer -- who used to slink through Capitol halls with a “kick me” sign on his back affixed by slithery Mitch McConnell – is already exploring the same fast-track reconciliation process used to pass Biden’s big Covid relief bill without a single Republican vote. Go, Chuck, go.

When Washington Democrats act boldly, you know the country is in desperate shape. Everything is broken, and we’re woefully unprepared for the stormy future. Even corporate America knows we urgently need to upgrade our 1950s-era infrastructure – with business executives themselves as primary benefactors. They just don’t want to pay for this big investment in our future. But fuck the Business Roundtable and Chamber of Commerce. For too long their members have been looting the national treasury. Now it’s payback time.

As progressive members of Congress have pointed out, Biden’s $2 trillion price tag – as breathtaking as it sounds to the Mitch McConnell crowd – is actually far too low. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez laid out a persuasive case for much higher pubic investment on the Rachel Maddow Show last night, calling for $10 trillion in spending over the next 10 years. As AOC pointed out, Biden’s current Build Back Better bill includes $40 billion for public housing renewal across the nation after years of Republican defunding – but New York City’s decrepit public housing alone requires that amount.

So, yes, if America is truly to join the modern world, Joe Biden’s bill is a great beginning. But it’s only a beginning.