Why is it that the flag-waving, defense-loving, “pro-business” party seem intent on allowing the United States to fall further behind Europe and other developed countries? Is it because Republicans protect the quality of life of investors who dodge taxes whereas Democrats protect the quality of life of working Americans who pay theirs?
Eric Levitz offers a very short list:
Over the coming decade, the United States is projected to produce $288 trillion worth of goods and services. In that same time period, our country is also poised to:
• suffer from massive shortages of affordable housing, eldercare, and childcare.
• remain the only high-income country that does not guarantee paid leave to its new parents, and affordable health insurance to all its citizens.
• invest an infinitesimal fraction of our national resources into mitigating climate change, despite the catastrophic economic, ecological, public health, and national security implications of unchecked global warming.
Democrats want to devote about 1.2 percent of our national income to addressing these and other pressing needs, say Levitz. Yet Republicans are just fine with keeping Democrats from doing so, branding them as socialists even while cosying up to any similarly appointed “socialist” governments across the pond. And to tyrants if their bottom lines are fetching.
Levitz’s target this morning, however, are Republican-enabling Democratic centrists reluctant to bring good things to life, as the old GE commercials said. He enumerates the many good things the centrists stand against:
Alas, a few conservative Democrats think that fighting climate change, caring for the elderly, reducing childcare costs, expanding access to health insurance, providing a child allowance to new parents, increasing housing affordability, and investing in public education aren’t very important objectives. Or at least, they believe that those aims are of such limited importance, it would be outrageous to dedicate $3.5 trillion to them.
Even Republicans will agree to spending at that level — unpaid for — if it is for tax cuts for the wealthy. Got to protect the quality of life of rich investors who will dodge taxes whatever the percentage.
Owing to their razor-thin legislative margins and support among a couple of stubborn Democrats, Levitz laments, Biden’s agenda initially priced (and reportedly paid for) at $3.5 trillion over 10 years will get pared back to between $1.9 trillion and $2.3 trillion.
What to trim? Levitz offers some ideas, none of them great, he admits:
There are multiple ways to fit a $3.5 trillion peg into a $2.3 trillion hole. One would be to retain almost all of Biden’s current policy initiatives, but in smaller and/or more temporary form. Instead of giving dental benefits to all Medicare beneficiaries, you could restrict such benefits to seniors who earn less than $39,000. Instead of giving a child allowance to 88 percent of U.S. parents, you could give it to the minority of parents who earn less than $50,000 a year.
Meanwhile, you could play games with the budget window: The Congressional Budget Office scores the fiscal cost of legislation based on its budgetary impacts over a decade. So, you could set universal pre-kindergarten, childcare subsidies, and an expansion of the Affordable Care Act to expire in 2025, and hope that a future Congress would find it politically impossible to let those programs die. Or else, you could delay the implementation of expanded Medicare benefits until 2028. Even in its $3.5 trillion form, Biden’s plan included many of these sorts of budget gimmicks. You could therefore produce a bargain-basement version of “Build Back Better” by turning the means tests and phase-outs up to 11.
Or Democrats could drop the means tests and pass the reforms for a limited time on the theory that they will be hard to repeal once implemented. Or pass fewer permanent programs, tossing many important policies but leaving in place durable, legacy achievments.
Catherine Rampell recommends “doing fewer things well, rather than doing a lot of things halfway.” Getting so many programs off the ground simultaneously could be as hard as lifting a starship into orbit. Maybe. But some in the White House take the view that “it’s better to plant many seeds and see what blossoms.” But Democrats face tough choices. Invest in the future, Rampell suggests:
“Building Back Better” almost by definition requires investing in a lower-carbon future, to literally keep the planet habitable. We have a sense of which policies are likely to be most effective. Those policies may not be the exact array of climate programs that Democrats currently offer. (A carbon tax would be more effective at reducing emissions than pretty much anything Democrats are seriously considering, and it would have the added benefit of raising money.)
Their other priorities must include investing in children, particularly low-income children, such as through universal, high-quality pre-K; and a generous child tax credit that aims its firepower at families with low or zero earnings, so that more children are lifted out of poverty. Reducing child poverty is both a humanitarian and economic concern. Investing in children suffering from poverty helps them grow up to become more productive adults, who earn more money, have better health and need fewer services.
She concludes:
Many times Biden has said, “Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” His party has tried to wriggle out of the moral implications of that statement by pretending its budget can accommodate every desirable program. Now Democrats must prove what they actually value most.
All made necessary by a couple of Democrats who value outdated Senate tradition and arbitrary spending caps over the needs of their constituents, as well as valuing bipartisan action with political rivals with no scruples about handing windfalls to oligarchs.