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Beyond the Bipartisan
Compromise
This week’s preliminary
infrastructure agreement between White House negotiators and a
bipartisan group of senators would amount to $1.2 trillion, with $579
billion in new spending over eight years.
That falls far short of the $4
trillion in President Biden’s American Jobs Plan and American Families
Plan proposals, most of which lawmakers are now likely to pursue
through budget reconciliation—and which former US Treasury Secretary
Robert Rubin, Roosevelt Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz, and Roosevelt
President and CEO Felicia Wong agree are urgently needed.
“We are not generally regarded as
occupying the same position within economic policy debates. We have
had divergent views on issues relating to spending, taxes, and
deficits,” they write
in The Hill.
“But we’ve come to the same
conclusion: President Biden’s economic agenda would make long-overdue
investments in our nation’s future, and the revenue measures that
would fund those investments are sound, progressive, and efficient.
Over the long term, we believe it would be highly detrimental to our
economy not to pass the
Biden plan.”
As Wong tweeted yesterday, “bottom line: we need at least
the full $4T package, including climate & care, as investments in
our nation’s future.”
For
more Roosevelt analysis of Biden’s economic plans, click
here.
Abolish the Filibuster
This week’s blockage of the For the
People Act is a potent reminder: The filibuster has to go.
“Our multiracial democracy is under
attack. The rollback of voting rights and use of the filibuster to
block the For the People Act is a direct response to our communities
building power,” said Roosevelt’s
Kyle Strickland. “We need leaders who will act, and not hide behind a
made-up procedural tool at the expense of our democracy.”
As Roosevelt’s Rhiana Gunn-Wright
explained in a New York Times panel
discussion with Ezra Klein, the filibuster also hinders the scale and
structure of action necessary to combat the climate crisis effectively
and equitably.
For more on the filibuster, read Emily
DiVito’s “How the Filibuster Has Hurt Workers and Protected Corporate
Influence.”
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