Nothing better illustrates the differences between the administration that begins its term and the old regime 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 has been a clear bet that the country’s economic recovery must begin by financially assisting the poor and the middle class.
For Trump and Republicans, the priority was to mount a tax cut to benefit large corporations and the super-rich disguised as tax reform.
With his economic policy, Biden makes it clear that he favors economic growth from the bottom up: by first rescuing those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic, small business owners have suffered from confinement, hospitals have been abandoned in their fate and to the covid patients to whom the severity of the pandemic was hidden for months.
Trump’s policy was the old, worn-out drip theory that promised that lowering taxes on the rich would grow investment, boost the economy, and benefit us all. The problem is that since Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, the most faithful practitioners of the myth, so far, in no country has the drip theory generated greater economic growth, created more employment, or benefited the middle class, and to the poor.
Over the weekend, Democrats in the Senate, without a single Republican vote, approved a historic $ 1.9 trillion pandemic economic stimulus plan. The package includes sending direct checks for $ 1,400 to people who earn less than $ 75,000 a year.
Those who lost their jobs due to the pandemic will also receive a $ 300-a-week bonus that runs through Sept. 6, and there will also be tax exemptions for those earning less than $ 150,000 a year. ‘year.
In terms of health, the plan provides financial aid to rural hospitals, and workers who are now unemployed will be able to stay in their company’s health plan for 18 months through health insurance. To help people maintain this health insurance, which is very expensive, beneficiaries will receive a subsidy of 85% of the former.
Another section includes millions of dollars in emergency funds to assist state and local governments severely affected by the pandemic, in their payments to key frontline workers, in health care, security, food, postmen, shop assistants. groceries. It will also help schools financially to ensure a safe reopening. More than one million small businesses will be subsidized, and investment will also be made in enabling vaccination and testing centers.
Today, poverty in the country has grown almost twice as much as the increase in poverty in the 1960s. To the 43 million poor people in the United States before the pandemic, it now needs to increase — 8 million more.
Biden’s priority is to help people pay their arrears, buy groceries, avoid evictions. According to improve pandemic health control and extend vaccination, the economic benefits of the stimulus package will generate an increase in consumer spending, increase staffing and increase production.
In a matter of days there will be reconciliation between the bills in the Senate and the House of Representatives, and with the signature of the President we will have a stimulus package that will benefit ordinary people, not Wall Street millionaires .
Sergio Muñoz Bata