Biden’s $4 Trillion Economic Plan

[iNow]

He renewed calls tonight for infrastructure investment, $15 minimum wage, labor unions protection legislation, climate change jobs, and more. 

Let’s get to work. Doing nothing is not an option.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/28/upshot/biden-economic-plan-chart.html

There’s also education funding directed to community colleges, free preschool, affordable childcare, and National paid family leave. 

If even 1/3 if what he proposes gets done it will fundamentally transform the United States in ways not seen since the New Deal and WWII.  

Edited April 29, 2021 by iNow

[Phi for All]

I hope his expansion of the IRS will include efforts to remove private interests from the relationship between the average citizen and their government. Those private interests are the ones who lobby to make the tax structure far more complicated than it needs to be to force People to use accountants and services like TurboTax and H&R Block. The IRS (I think it was Hassan Minhaj on The Patriot Act where I heard this) has the ability to simply send us a bill (or a refund check) based on the records they keep, and you would only send in a return if your figures were different. 

I can't help but think how Republicans of 30 years ago would have jumped on board wholeheartedly wrt infrastructure. What's happened to them? Biden obviously wants to put a LOT of people to work, fix a bunch of roads and bridges, and today's GOP is shaking their heads like it's a bad thing. Are they still fixated on building walls? Every Republican friend I have has been raging about fixing infrastructure as long as I've known them, and I can see it in their faces that their current leadership is leaving them baffled as to why they don't want to work on roads and bridges. 

And I'm so glad about the family and education support. This is why a society has a government in the first place, imo, to provide a high base level of opportunity for as many of its People as possible. The US has a VERY big ignorance problem right now, and better education has to be a priority.

[StringJunky]

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I hope his expansion of the IRS will include efforts to remove private interests from the relationship between the average citizen and their government. Those private interests are the ones who lobby to make the tax structure far more complicated than it needs to be to force People to use accountants and services like TurboTax and H&R Block. The IRS (I think it was Hassan Minhaj on The Patriot Act where I heard this) has the ability to simply send us a bill (or a refund check) based on the records they keep, and you would only send in a return if your figures were different. 

I can't help but think how Republicans of 30 years ago would have jumped on board wholeheartedly wrt infrastructure. What's happened to them? Biden obviously wants to put a LOT of people to work, fix a bunch of roads and bridges, and today's GOP is shaking their heads like it's a bad thing. Are they still fixated on building walls? Every Republican friend I have has been raging about fixing infrastructure as long as I've known them, and I can see it in their faces that their current leadership is leaving them baffled as to why they don't want to work on roads and bridges. 

And I'm so glad about the family and education support. This is why a society has a government in the first place, imo, to provide a high base level of opportunity for as many of its People as possible. The US has a VERY big ignorance problem right now, and better education has to be a priority.

I've read recently that the GOP don't like the proposed infrastructure bill because there are/were elements in it that they said had nothing to do with infrastructure, like the minimum wage hike. They do have a point. 

Edited April 29, 2021 by StringJunky

[iNow]

2 hours ago, Phi for All said:

I hope his expansion of the IRS will include efforts to remove private interests from the relationship between the average citizen and their government.

It may, but my intuition here is it’s about enforcing existing tax laws more comprehensively. A study came out recently from Larry Summers and another economist currently working in Treasury that showed additional revenues of up to $1.5T could be secured just by chasing down current cheats under current law. This seems like something that’d be easier to chase than tax increases.  We’ll see. 

 

11 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

I've read recently that the GOP don't like the proposed infrastructure bill because there are/were elements in it that they said had nothing to do with infrastructure, like the minimum wage hike. They do have a point. 

Perhaps they do have a point, but it’s a red herring. A semantic game. 

It’s a jobs act with elements of infrastructure, not just infrastructure focused alone. Also, even if I stipulate it is and should only be infrastructure, it’s hard to argue against needing childcare, and safe schools, and family leave protection, and high speed Internet in rural areas, and cyber security, etc. to enable those workers and women to get working on these various projects. Roads aren’t the only thing underlying all other transactions any more.

There’s hard / physical infrastructure and there’s soft / social infrastructure. This ridiculous focus on the 1950s definition of the word (“No, only bridges and roads!!”) is a false dichotomy and a distraction from investing in the USA so it can compete 10 years from now with China (who’s most decidedly NOT playing these childish word games to avoid doing what will help society as a whole). 

Another example? Extending the current K-12 public education to instead be preK-14…. Those 2 years of community college really will setup the future for success, even if the “infrastructure” being invested in is skills and knowledge across the workforce. 

Edited April 29, 2021 by iNow

[iNow]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/04/30/majority-americans-support-bidenomics-pandemic-changed-minds-dramatically/

Quote

our new research suggests that a much wider swath of Americans — including Republican voters — support Biden’s economic policy plans, sometimes called “Bidenomics.” When we remind Americans how hard the coronaviruspandemic has hit the United States, both economically and socially, we find bipartisan support for tax increases. That suggests the GOP’s adamant rejection of Bidenomics might erode over time.

<…>
After reading about the pandemic’s expected devastation to both lives and livelihoods, both Democrats and Republicans supported broad tax hikes. An overwhelming majority said they would support a post-pandemic fiscal plan relying almost exclusively on across-the-board tax increases, with especially large support for taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Our analysis suggests that between 55 and 65 percent of Americans would support plans that increased taxes.