Nothing illustrates the differences between the new administration and the old regime better than the legislative priorities of Joe Biden and the Democrats, and those of Donald Trump and the Republican Party.
The first legislative effort by Biden and the Democrats in Congress was a clear gamble that the country’s economic recovery must begin by helping the poor and middle class economically.
For Trump and the Republicans, the priority was to set up a tax cut in favor of big business and the super-rich, disguised as tax reform.
With his economic policies, Biden makes it clear that he promotes bottom-up economic growth: first rescuing those who lost their jobs in the pandemic, the small entrepreneurs whose businesses are suffering lockdowns, the hospitals abandoned by their fortune, and the Covid patients. from whom the severity of the pandemic had been hidden for months.
Trump’s policy was the old, worn-out trickle-down theory that promised that lowering taxes on the rich would increase investment, boost the economy, and benefit us all. The problem is, since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the most staunch practitioners of the myth to date, in no country has the trickle-down theory led to greater economic growth, created more jobs, or the middle class and the poor. benefited.
Last weekend, aside from a single Republican vote, Senate Democrats approved a historic $ 1.9 trillion economic stimulus plan against the pandemic. The package includes sending direct checks for $ 1,400 to people making less than $ 75,000 per year.
Those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic will also get a $ 300 a week bonus until September 6, and there will also be tax exemptions for those making less than $ 150,000 a year.
In terms of health, the plan grants financial aid to rural hospitals, and now unemployed workers can stay on their company’s health plan for 18 months through health insurance. To help people maintain this very expensive health insurance policy, the beneficiaries receive a grant of 85% of the premiums.
Another section contains millions of dollars in emergency funds to help state and local governments severely affected by the pandemic in their payments to essential frontline workers, in healthcare, security, food, postmen and shop assistants. Likewise, the schools will be financially supported to ensure a safe reopening. More than a million small businesses will be subsidized and investments will also be made to set up vaccination and testing centers.
Today, poverty in the country is nearly twice that of the 1960s. Of the 43 million poor in the United States before the pandemic, we now need to raise another 8 million.
Biden’s priority is to help people pay their overdue bills, run errands and avoid evictions. As sanitary control of the pandemic improves and vaccination spreads, the economic benefits of the stimulus package will lead to higher consumer spending, hiring staff and increasing production.
Reconciliation between the Senate and House bills will come in days, and with the president’s signature we will have a stimulus package that will benefit the common people, not the millionaires of Wall Street.
Sergio Muñoz Bata