Despite his reputation as a deal-cutting centrist, Biden’s proposals so far have been decidedly progressive; some Democrats and pundits are calling Biden’s agenda a “New New Deal,” inviting comparisons to former President Franklin Roosevelt. The American Rescue Plan that Biden signed into law injected nearly $2 trillion into the economy to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic and for emergency aid. Now his American Jobs Plan calls for a mammoth $2.25 trillion investment in things like transportation infrastructure, technology and the care economy, which includes child care and elder care.
While they may want to make tweaks around the edges, progressives don’t want to slow that massive government spending from getting out the door to their constituents and communities.
“He criticized Trump but he didn’t mention him; it wasn’t overt,” added former Rep. Luis Gutierrez
Yet Biden was not calling for bipartisan cooperation on individual policy proposals. His was a much broader plea to turn down the temperature for the sake of preserving the country’s centuries-old experiment in democracy a sharp contrast to Trump’s speech four years ago in which he warned of the “American carnage” wrought by liberal policies. Politics doesn t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn t have to be a cause for total war,” Biden said. “And we must reject the culture in which facts themselves are manipulated and even manufactured.