Will Democrats be rewarded for spending lots of money?
The precedents suggest not
AMERICA’S PROGRESSIVES reckon they would win more elections if only Congress would pass their left-leaning economic agenda. The presidential campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in 2020 were animated by the idea that raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans to pay for much more spending would turn out younger and less engaged voters. A watered-down version of the same theory is being applied by some Democrats to Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure bill, which allocates $550bn in new spending over the next ten years for various public-works projects and was signed into law this week. The total price-tag of $1trn is higher than the Democrats’ most recent infrastructure-focused stimulus package, Barack Obama’s 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Will voters be madly grateful?
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Spending and voting”
United States November 20th 2021
- MacKenzie Scott is giving away more money, faster, than anyone has before
- The acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse shows America’s divide over guns
- America’s Catholic schools are seeing a surprising rise in enrolment
- Puerto Rico, success story
- Will Democrats be rewarded for spending lots of money?
- Democrats have a plan to lower drug costs without hurting innovation
- Pete Buttigieg’s impossible job
From the November 20th 2021 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from United States
A controversial idea to hand even more power to the president
Impoundment is about to come a step closer
Tom Homan, unleashed
America’s new border czar spent decades waiting for a president like Donald Trump
An unfinished election may shape a swing state’s future
A Supreme Court race ended very close. Then the lawyers arrived.
Donald Trump cries “invasion” to justify an immigration crackdown
His executive orders range from benign to belligerent
To end birthright citizenship, Donald Trump misreads the constitution
A change would also create huge practical problems