Juan Domingo Biden | Profile

The United States does not commemorate May 1, Labor Day, instituted in memory of the martyrs of Chicago, anarchist trade unionists executed in 1886 during a strike calling for “eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure and eight hours of break “. Eight years later, the United States decided to celebrate Labor Day on another date – the first Monday in September – for fear of encouraging the growing socialist movement of the turn of the century. But it was social liberalism (social liberalism, social capitalism or social market economy) that was the key to North American progress, which it exported to Europe after having defeated World War II and is represented by the Democratic Party, its founder Thomas Jefferson and the current president, Joe Biden.

Listening to President Biden’s 100 Days of Government address to Congress last week encourages reflection on the difference between what the United States proclaims in international economic institutions and what it practices within its own. country. Also on the myopia of certain elites in underdeveloped countries, not perceiving this difference. If that same speech by Biden had been given by an Argentine president, he would have been accused, depending on the moment, of being a radical, a Peronist or a populist.

Essentially, Biden proposed to raise taxes on the wealthy to increase social spending and public works, as well as to defend the unions, to which he credited the creation of the American middle class. Repeating the word “work, work and work” as a mantra, he demanded an increase in the minimum wage so that “no one who works 40 hours a week lives below the poverty line”.

The historian who headed the Center for the Study of the Presidency of the United States, Joan Hoff, said that to find something “as bold and inclusive” as Biden’s proposal, you have to go back to the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt against the Great. Depression in 1933.

Biden himself said, “I inherited a nation in crisis. The worst pandemic in a century. The worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The worst attack on our democracy since the civil war ”.

Explicitly, it was mentioned in the New Deal and its call to action: “In another era when our democracy was being tested”, another bailout included “investments that only the government was able to make. achieve”.

It made a left turn, reversing the prevailing economic consensus which did not make the state but the market the engine of the economy and, by extension, the distributor of wealth. JW Mason, member, precisely, of the Roosevelt Institute, said: “The change is big enough to describe it as a break with neoliberalism.” And he added: “Most of the decrees signed by Biden are imminently social.” “We see that the influence of the progressive sector of the Democratic Party will be felt throughout this presidential term.” Biden’s speech was widely applauded by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren of the party’s left wing.

One of Biden’s mottos was “Go big and go fast”. Partly because his age does not allow him to wait but also because the Democrats could lose in the midterm elections of 2022 and the majority of the Chamber of Deputies, in addition to the Senate, where current control is very tight .

The comparison of Biden’s plan with Roosevelt’s New Deal is based on the fact that it allocates almost 40% of the federal budget and about 9% of the GDP to economic stimulus and constitutes the greatest strengthening of the “welfare state”. ” for decades. It’s a project to “improve the lives of millions of Americans” that will be funded by raising taxes on the super rich. This plan “recognizes something I’ve always said: Wall Street didn’t build this country. The middle class built this country. And the unions have built the middle class ”. As he announced: “The Tax Agency will take action against millionaires and billionaires who cheat on their taxes.” “It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and the center out,” “It’s also time for US businesses and the richest 1% of Americans to start paying their fair share” . And explaining the largest employment plan since World War II, Biden noted that “nearly 90% of the infrastructure jobs created in the employment plan do not require a college degree” and “75% do require no type of diploma. “.

Roosevelt’s famous speech in July 1934 in which he announced his measures against the Great Depression signified the creation of a social security system that has since forever changed the role of the state in the American economy. According to historian Jonathan Alter, author of Roosevelt’s First 100 Days, Biden “is the first president who can rightly be called the heir of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

The University of Minnesota published a book on the coincidences between the wife of New Deal father, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Eva Perón: “Both have broken gender norms and redefined the role of first lady.” On the inspiration Perón drew from Roosevelt and his Secretary of Labor between 1933 and 1945, Frances Perkins, more has been written. This allows, in a transitive arbitrariness, to consider Biden, to some extent, also linked to classical Peronist ideology. Biden, besides being a Catholic, is the one who brought Pope Francis to Congress in 2015 as Obama’s vice president and president of the Senate.

Finally, Trump would not be the first Peronist president of the United States as some exaggeratingly speculated, but Biden.