US Crisis Program: The Biden Revolution | tagesschau.de

Arthur Landwehr
ARD-Studio Washington

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From the first day of his government onwards, Biden uses what may only be the short time of the majority in Congress for a quiet, professional and at the same time highly efficient revolution, or better for a counter-revolution that is far from over.

Reagan: Less government, more ownership

“In a crisis like this, the state is no solution. On the contrary, the state is the problem”. Reagan made this key phrase of his inauguration speech the maxim of his politics in the 1980s and consistently reduced the role of the state in American society, with consequences to this day.

Government organizations that Lyndon B. Johnson had created or strengthened in his “War on Poverty” 20 years before him, Reagan systematically took the funds, some of them destroyed: social health insurance, state pension, unemployment insurance, grants for universities and much more. Unions fell by the wayside. He wanted to go back to what Reagan said at the time, what constitutes the essence of America, the care for oneself, the right and the obligation to keep one’s own fate in hand.

Redistribution of wealth and income

So now Joe Biden. The US state has not taken on such a strong and dominant role for a long time in reshaping social conditions and trying to turn the redistribution of wealth and income around.

Biden rejects Reagan’s thesis of the “Trickle Down Effect”. He believes that the idea that wealthy people and companies must be relieved financially so that they can invest is unjust and has failed. This creates profits that rain down as jobs and higher wages.

Higher minimum wages, free universities and daycare centers

Biden, on the other hand, wants to start at the bottom: Higher minimum wages make work attractive. Free community colleges make education affordable. Free day-care centers and kindergartens enable single people to work and reliable health insurance ensures security.

He also wants to finance it by reversing the tax policy of Reagan and his predecessor Donald Trump. They had drastically cut taxes on high incomes and companies and cushioned this with fewer social benefits and high debts. Biden wants to do it the other way round, namely to take back some of the tax cuts and use them to finance his social programs. But he will also incur debts.

“Plan to Save America”

He has already gotten the $ 1.9 trillion corona aid package through without a single Republican vote. The narrative belonging to this “plan to save America” ​​mainly knows Corona aid, above all the $ 1,400 transfers to most citizens to stimulate consumption after the Covid crisis. Then the expanded unemployment benefits and aid programs for distressed small and medium-sized enterprises.

In fact, that’s only a small part of the package. Most of the money is already going into programs with which the state takes on tasks and responsibilities that, according to previous ideology, it should never have. If these are up and running in a few weeks, people with very low incomes will have 20 percent more in their pockets if the number of children below the poverty line is to be halved.

Too much debt, too little personal responsibility

Biden opposes resistance, also from his own party. One allegation is that he is wasting enormous sums of money that irresponsibly increases the debt and causes the country’s budget to collapse. On the ideological side, his opponents consider this program to be “un-American” because it replaces people’s personal responsibility with a welfare state. The result would be paralysis and a lack of initiative, a socialist system in which the state regulates everything. But companies and creative, risk-taking people suffocated.

Biden’s policy of more liberal immigration rules and stricter controls on gun owners fits into this image of a government that aims to destroy the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of every single American through a state barbed wire of rules, regulations and controls.

Five trillion dollars for Biden America

In the US political discourse, “socialist” is usually a killer term that is used to denigrate the political opponent. From a European point of view, however, Biden’s programs, which were initiated with numerous quick presidential orders and initial legislative initiatives, have more of the character of moderate social democratic politics.

But Biden is far from finished, acting according to the maxim that you should never waste a crisis. After a year of pandemic, his policy of spending money is well received by the population and this week he will present a three trillion dollar infrastructure program. If it sticks to the sum, he picks up a total of five trillion dollars in borrowed money to create Biden America. For comparison: That is about ten times as much as the entire federal budget in Germany.

Superficially, the aim is to renovate ailing bridges and streets, to modernize the desolate and completely outdated networks for electricity, gas and water or to finance fast internet for everyone. In fact, it contains the money for the conversion to a climate-friendly energy system, further financing for education, health care and social services. Biden calls this a “social infrastructure”. And here, too, in Biden’s imagination, the state takes the initiative again and determines the agenda, not the market.

Role models: Lyndon B. Johnson and Franklin D. Roosevelt

Biden had met with historians at the White House a few weeks ago, it was known afterwards. For several hours he asked how previous presidents had used their role to leave their mark on the country and to shape society anew.

He would have liked two in particular: Lyndon B. Johnson, who was able to enforce the Equal Rights Act in addition to the state social institutions. At that time, social cohesion threatened to break down in the struggle for a new system of values.

And then Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led the country out of one of the worst economic crises during the Great Depression with the “New Deal”, that is, huge government spending on credit. State investments and aid provided jobs and security until the economy picked up again.

Both presidents are revolutionary in their own way because they broke up forever held traditions and ideas about the United States and led the country in a different direction. The new president seems to be orienting himself towards these two in his crisis.

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