The President of the United States, Joe Biden, presented on Wednesday his proposal for massive public investment of more than 2 trillion dollars in national infrastructure with which he continues the turn in economic policy that breaks with the neoliberal consensus of the last 40 years.
A plan that at the same time includes measures to mitigate climate change, a phenomenon that his Secretary of the Treasury described as an “existential problem.”
Biden revealed his great investment project in the national infrastructure declaring that his plan is “an investment in the United States like nothing we have seen or done since we built the inter-state highway system and the space race decades ago.”
In the same way, the president of the United States assured that his investment plan will create millions of jobs, revive the US economy and help the country have a position to compete with China in the coming years.
Likewise, the president defended his plan, raising taxes on large companies and Americans with higher incomes.
“I have nothing against millionaires and billionaires. I believe in American capitalism”, he affirmed, pointing out that there are multinationals like Amazon that use tax loopholes to avoid paying a penny in federal taxes. “This is wrong,” he said.
Public investment in the country’s physical infrastructure has plummeted over the past five decades, and Biden noted that the United States now ranks 13th in the world in this area.
The pandemic and the effects of climate change have exposed the deterioration of roads, bridges, ports, schools, drinking water systems, railways, public transport and more.
Another part of Biden’s proposal also includes massive public investments in areas beyond physical infrastructure, in what they call “research infrastructure” including scientific, medical and energy research projects.
What is sought is to subsidize the transfer of sectors to a “green” economy, supporting, for example, more electric transport, from public buses to private cars, greater energy efficiency in schools and community universities, and improving conditions for workers and students in support sectors. Social.
Some liberal observers express surprise that Biden is promoting this turn in economic policy. “Now something unexpected and miraculous is happening: Joe Biden, the most centrist of the 2020 Democratic candidates, is ruling like Franklin Roosevelt,” commented political analyst Robert Kuttner, editor of the American Prospect.