The guardian
Why Republicans Won’t Agree with Biden’s Big Plans and Why He Should Ignore Them
The new president can achieve great and important reform and relief without the Trump party – and they know that Joe Biden speaks to journalists before joining Marine One in the White House. Photo: Tom Brenner / Reuters If ever there was a time for daring government, it is now. Covid, unemployment, poverty, furious inequality and our last chance to preserve the planet together create an existential turning point. Fortunately for America and the world, Donald Trump is gone, and Joe Biden has big plans to help Americans survive Covid and then restructure the economy, rebuild the country’s infrastructure, and create millions of green jobs. But Republicans in Congress do not want to go along. Why not? Mitch McConnell and others say America cannot afford it. “We have just passed a program with more than $ 900 billion in it,” crept Senator Mitt Romney, the most liberal group. Garbage. We can not afford not to do so. Fighting Covid will require a lot more money. People hurt. Moreover, this is no time to worry about national debt, with the economy in heavy decline. The best way to reduce debt as part of the economy is to grow the economy again. The real reason Republicans want to stop Biden is that they are afraid his plans will work. Restoring outdated infrastructure and building a new energy-efficient one will make the economy grow even faster in the long run and further reduce the debt’s share. No one with the right mind should worry that public spending will “displace” private investment. If you have not noticed, it is currently very cheap to borrow. Money search around the world looking for lenders. It’s hard to take the Republican concern about debt seriously when, just four years ago, they had no doubt about the introduction of one of the largest tax cuts in history, largely for large corporations and the super-rich. If they really do not want to add the debt, there is another alternative. They can pay taxes on super-rich Americans. The total wealth of America’s 660 billionaires has grown by a staggering $ 1.1 ton since the start of the pandemic, an increase of 40%. They alone were able to fund almost all of Biden’s Covid emergency relief package and still be as rich as before the pandemic. So why not a temporary Covid wealth tax? The real reason Republicans want to stop Biden is that they are afraid his plans will work. That would be the Republican’s worst nightmare: all the anti-government slap they’ve been selling since Ronald Reagan will be exposed as nonsense. The government is not the problem and has never been. Bad government is the problem, and Americans have only had four years of it. Biden’s success would sharply alleviate Trump and Republicans’ extreme failures on Covid, jobs, poverty, inequality and climate change, and all others. Biden and the Democrats would reap the political rewards in 2022 and beyond. Democrats can even hold the presidency and Congress for a generation long. After FDR saved America, the Republican Party went dark for two decades. Trump Republicans in Congress have an even more demonic motive for blocking Biden. They think if Americans remain in perpetual crises and still deepening fear, they will lose confidence in democracy itself. That would pave the way for another strongman demagogue in 2024 – if not Trump, a Trump imitator like Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley or Donald Trump Jr. , Americans’ faith in democracy can begin to recover – which is the end of the country’s flirtation with fascism. If he helps build a new economy of green jobs with good wages, even Trump’s fierce white working class base could emerge. The worst secret in Washington is that Biden does not really need Republicans anyway. With their razor-sharp majority in both houses of Congress, Democrats can draft Biden’s plans without a single Republican vote. The concern is that Biden wants to demonstrate a dual partnership and may try so hard to get Republican votes that his plans are diluted to the point where Republicans get what they want: failure. Praying must forget twofold. Mitch McConnell and the Republicans of the Senate did not make a speech on duality when they and Trump were in power. If Republicans try to stone Biden’s Covid relief plan, Biden and the Democrats will have to do so only through a maneuver called ‘reconciliation’, which will allow a simple majority to pass budget legislation. If Republicans try to block anything else, Biden must scrap the filibuster – which now requires 60 senators to end the debate. The filibuster is not in the constitution. It is anti-democratic, giving a minority of senators the power to block the majority. It has rarely been used in most of the country’s history. The filibuster can be terminated by a simple majority vote, which means Democrats have the power to delete it. Biden will have to wrap the arms of some stubborn Democrats, but that’s what presidential leadership often requires. The multiple crises that are engulfing America are huge. The opportunity to address this is small. If ever there was a time for boldness, it is now. Robert Reich, a former U.S. Secretary of Labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and the Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is now available. He is a columnist for Guardian US