Joe Biden took the riskiest step of his presidency with a call for higher taxes on the wealthy to fund a massive investment in the nation’s social safety net, betting he could sell the American public on sweeping change following a pandemic that exacerbated economic and social divides.
Biden devoted his first address to a joint session of Congress to a call for a “a once-in-a-generation investment in our families,” prescribing trillions of dollars in new spending for infrastructure spending, child care, paid leave, community college tuition, and a bevy of subsidies for working class families.
And in a full-throated confrontation of Wall Street, Biden said the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers and companies should foot the bill. He declared investors “didn’t build this country” and said the wealthy had lined their pockets during the pandemic without paying their fair share.
“I stand here tonight before you in a new and vital hour of life and democracy of our nation,” Biden said.
The speech was delivered to a House chamber where heightened security and social distancing measures underscored the disease and division still confronting the nation. It amounted to an audacious gamble that Biden can harness public support not only for trillions of dollars in new federal programs for lower- and middle-income Americans, but the biggest tax hikes in decades.
But his ambitions rest on a narrow Democratic majority in the Senate, where the defections of only a single moderate or two would mean failure.
Biden painted the deadly course of the virus as embodying and exaggerating the inequalities that have broadened in recent decades, with working class Americans shouldering economic and health insecurity while the wealthiest flourished. At risk is not only his vision for rebuilding the economy, but the razor-thin advantage his party holds in Congress ahead of the 2022 midterm elections, when Republicans are well positioned to retake the majority at least in the House.
“Doing nothing is not an option,” the president implored.
Unattainable Wealth
Biden’s effort was in many ways a break from the cautious center-left triangulation that has defined Democratic presidential politics since the Reagan Revolution. His calculation is that voters battered by the virus just a decade after a painful recession are no longer as concerned about deficit spending or retaining low tax rates for a tier of wealth that seems increasingly unattainable.
And Biden used one of the biggest bully pulpits he’s provided to offer a presidential validation of the growing influence of the progressive left, pitching at least $3.8 trillion in new spending, sweeping new changes to the health care system, and substantial gun control measures.
Biden’s own tendencies are more conciliatory, and he’s likely to ultimately jettison some of the more ambitious proposals as he seeks to navigate legislation through Capitol Hill—particularly with moderate Democrats already expressing skepticism about new taxes and spending. He took pains to caveat his broadsides against the nation’s wealthiest, saying he was “not out to punish anyone” and, in a line improvised from the prepared text, acknowledged the “good guys and women on Wall Street.”
But he left little room for critics within his party to argue he lacked ambition, and his presidential legacy will now be defined by his ability to deliver a once-in-a-generation suite of new government investments, services, and programs.
The forum for Biden’s call for structural economic change itself seemed designed to underscore the unprecedented moment. Because of coronavirus precautions, only about 200 lawmakers were invited to attend the speech in person, and some of the Senate’s most powerful moderates—including West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin and Utah Republican Mitt Romney—were relegated to seats in the upper balcony.