By addressing Congress this week, Joe Biden symbolically ended an era that began exactly forty years ago: that of neoliberalism. In January 1981, Ronald Reagan declared that the state was the problem, not the solution. It was necessary to reduce taxes, cut government spending, play competition, free the market, “run off the wealth” of Wall Street. Only defense escaped this logic in a world still plunged into the cold war. The “supply” economy put an end to dying Keynesianism. It is this same reasoning which was to preside over the advent of economic globalization after the fall of the communist bloc.
Joe Biden on Wednesday buried this ideology. To get the United States out of the rut, it plans to spend 6 trillion dollars. You read that correctly: 6000 billion. Its recovery plan (American Rescue Act, 1900 billion) was validated at the end of March by Congress. He intends to vote in the coming months a law on employment and infrastructure (2300 billion) and a law to support families (1800 billion). Its logic: the State must invest massively to create the jobs of tomorrow. Priority will be given to infrastructures, training and research. How will he finance this plan? By a tax reform: less taxes for the middle class, more taxes for companies and much more taxes for the 1% of the richest individuals in the country.
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