Isabel V. Sawhill
As president, Biden will need a bold and bipartisan economic agenda. Bold because we are still in a deep hole. Bipartisan because, at this writing, it seems likely that the branches of government will remain divided.
We will have continuing stimulus and relief negotiations during the lame-duck session. But come January, there will be a burst of new legislative proposals. As president, Joe Biden will have to pick his priorities. Ideas that promise to create jobs, help struggling families, and deal with COVID-19 would still get special attention. But a longer-term agenda will also begin to emerge, packaged in the need to build the country back better.
Bidenomics will probably focus on infrastructure and climate change (and clean-energy jobs). Biden wants to improve access to health care by lowering the age for Medicare eligibility to 60, offering a public option, lowering drug costs, and sweetening the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies (assuming the Supreme Court doesn’t eliminate it). He supports social programs such as child care, paid leave, student-debt forgiveness, free college for those with incomes under $125,000, and a stronger safety net. All of this would be expensive. He will probably try to pay for it by raising taxes on corporations and on families with more than $400,000 in income.
No comments:
Post a Comment