Joe Biden tiene anti si una gigantesca tarea: deshacer la mala imagen de su antecesor pero emular sus incontestables éxitos económicos con acciones y políticas propias.

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EL PROGRAMA ECONOMICO DEL PRESIDENTE BIDEN.
Manfred Nolte
Concluyó Trump su carrera presidencial virtualmente expulsado de su cargo
entre críticas y pasiones. Su actuación en el terreno de la economía ha sido
extremadamente contradictoria, combinando medidas liberalizadoras de
reducción de impuestos y desregulación que pueden catalogarse de audaces y
oportunas, con otras sistémicas que han causado una profunda brecha en la
cohesión política internacional, con la vuelta a unas políticas proteccionistas y
nacionalistas que tampoco le han pagado con el éxito. Ello no obsta para que el
legado económico pre-Covid del ex inquilino de la casa blanca haya sido en
determinados aspectos excelente dejando el país con una tasa de desempleo del
3,5%, las bolsas en máximos históricos y un 63% de participación de la fuerza
laboral. La herencia más negativa se ha situado en su política económica exterior:
ataques en tromba a los pilares de la globalización y ensalzamiento de la
autarquía y del neonacionalismo: ‘make America great again’ o ‘America first’;
cancelación de las negociaciones en marcha sobre el TTIP; retirada de los
Acuerdos de Paris sobreel cambio climático; repudio de NAFTAamenazando con
construir una valla en la frontera mexicana; denuncia del acuerdo nuclear con
Irán; despecho de la OMC y socavamiento de la OTAN, se incluyen en la larga
lista de sus hazañas antisistema.
Pero ha sido sobre todo su deriva hacia el despotismo, la confrontación y las
malas formas, culminadas en sus últimos días en el cargo con el presumible
aliento a unas acciones gravemente antidemocráticas las que han acabado de

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empañar su imagen y convertir en negativo un saldo que se repartía a partes
iguales entre aplausos y abucheos. Sin llegar a franquear el umbral del fascismo
como en muchos ámbitos se le han atribuido injustamente, Trump ha sido hijo
del nacional populismo, del que ha usado y abusado de forma prolija y a su
conveniencia.
Como en el caso británico del Brexit y algunos otros, su inesperada elevación a la
Presidencia fue motivada por la reacción de amplios estratos no solo de la clase
trabajadora sino incluso de la media y media alta que se consideraron en su
momento los grandes perjudicados de la globalización. Exponente de la derecha
radical en lo político ha estigmatizado a inmigrantes y otras minorías, y su
tránsito final por los límites de la democracia han dado al traste con su ya muy
cuestionada reputación.
Pero, como se ha dicho, en lo doméstico ha actuado de continuista y durante los
últimos mesesde asedio del Covid, ha ejercido de keynesiano, activando todo tipo
de ayudas públicas beligerantes, al más puro estilo del profesor de Cambridge.
La crisis que azota en estos momentos a Estados Unidos es exógena y el nuevo
mandatario de la Casa blanca Joe Biden tiene que encarar los estragos sanitarios
y económicos del Covid a la vez que se ve obligado a restaurar el tradicional
talante de moderación, solidaridad internacional, y buenos modales públicos que
competen al presidente de la primera potencia mundial, despreciados por su
antecesor.
El primer aspecto es quizá el más esperado y en buena medida el más fácil:
restablecer los lazos con el mundo institucional que Trump había laminado. En
este sentido no ha vacilado un instante restableciendo los lazos con los grandes
organismos internacionales, Club de Paris, OMS, OMC y asumiendo el resto de
los acuerdos multilaterales cancelados o pendientes como COVAX y otros.
Mantendrá, sin embargo, su distancia con China.
Frenar la sangría de la pandemia dependerá de su programa de inmunización
cifrado en ‘100 millones de vacunaciones en cien días’, y simultáneamente el
lanzamiento de un gran paquete fiscal de recuperación de 2 billones de dólares
(‘build back better recovery plan’) para paliar los estragos de los negocios
afectados, de las municipalidades y de los Estados federales. Biden cuenta a
continuación con el enorme colchón de ahorro acumulado en las familias
americanas para abrir las puertas del consumo y con ellas acceder a crecimientos
significativos del PIB y del empleo. Todo ello bien protegido por una FED
beligerante que mantendrá una política monetaria ultralaxa. El déficit fiscal y el
endeudamiento de la nación aumentarán en su consecuencia. Hasta aquí todo se
antoja correcto, pero podría haber llevado igualmente la firma del díscolo
presidente saliente.
Lo específico de Biden se centra en su política de mejora de las estructuras y en
una gran campaña para favorecer la igualdad de oportunidades instrumentada
en créditos fiscales a todo el arco de la educación, algo que generará importantes
beneficios, pero no en el corto plazo. Ha previsto restituir los 600 dólares de
beneficios al desempleo que expiraron en julio y acasoañadir un cheque de 1.200

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dólares similar al desembolsado como partede la ley CARES, para alivio del Covid
reactivando un plan de atención médica que se basará en Obamacare.
Partidario de un dólar débil, Biden es un ecologista confirmado que tiene como
objetivo alcanzar un 100% de energías renovables en 2050, lo que requerirá
ingentes subsidios. La industria del fracking, carbón y otras energías fósiles,
grandes soportes del expresidente Trump, sufrirán con ello.
Al igual que Trump, el que fue vicepresidente con Obama, quiere estimular las
manufacturas y retornar factorías a los Estados Unidos para dar empleo a
trabajadores americanos.
La gran disyuntiva se halla en el tema fiscal. Biden piensa desmontar el recorte
fiscal de Trump en 2017 que afectó no solo a sociedades, sino que aumentó la
renta disponible de toda la clase trabajadora americana. He aquí la primera gran
decisión que puede afectar la popularidad del recién elegido presidente.
Por lo demás Biden cree en la negociación colectiva y cuenta con el favor de los
sindicatos. No descarta subir el salario mínimo y dotar de protección social al
colectivo de profesores, maestros y otros trabajadores públicos.
Dejemos correr los cien días de cortesía.
JOE BIDEN'S ECONOMIC POLICY: TOP LINE AGENDA: FUENTE
INVESTOPEDIA.
 Provide health insurance coverage for 97% of Americans in 10
years.
 Raise an additional $4 trillion in tax revenue by increasing top tax
rate to 39.6%, taxing capital gains at ordinary rates and raising the
corporate tax rate to 28%.
 Forgive student loan debt and make college free for those making
up to $125,000.
 Raise minimum wage to $15 an hour and repeal "right to work"
laws.
 Expand "Buy American" policies through government purchasing,
while using subsidies, federal matching, and incentives to make
American products more competitive.
 Invest $1.3 trillion in infrastructure over 10 years.
 Spend $2 trillion on clean energy during first term as president
The American Rescue Plan
President Joe Biden formally announced his $1.9 trillion COVID-19
stimulus plan on January 15, 2020. "There is real pain overwhelming the
real economy.....You won’t see this pain if your scorecard is how things
are going on Wall Street," he said in his speech in Wilmington, Delaware.

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He referred to what many economists are calling a K-shaped
recovery, adding that "the wealth of the top 1% has grown by roughly
$1.5 trillion since the end of last year — four times the amount for the
entire bottom 50%."
Funding the assault on the virus, strengthening the social safety net for
those pushed to the brink and helping state and local governments are
the main goals of the American Rescue Plan. In the first 100 days of his
administration, he wants to reopen most schools and have 100 million
vaccine doses administered.
In the coming weeks, he will announce a separate economic recovery
plan, which will include investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, and
other spending unrelated to COVID-19 to "create millions of additional
good-paying jobs, combat the climate crisis, and build back better than
before."
The American Rescue Plan doesn't mention tax increases, which means
the federal government will pay for it with debt. The President has spoken
strongly against deficit worries during the pandemic, earning praise from
progressives in his party like Bernie Sanders.
The main elements of the American Rescue Plan are as follows:
 Direct aid ($1 trillion): $1,400 per-person checks to supplement
the $600 checks going out now. Extending emergency
unemployment insurance and eviction moratoriums through
September 2021 and raising the former to $400/week. Notably, he
is asking Congress for automatic economic triggers so that people
don't bear the brunt of legislative delays. $25 billion in rental
assistance and $5 billion to cover home energy and water costs. $5
billion in emergency assistance for the homeless. Child care and
food program funding. Expanding child care tax credit for one year.
Raising the federal minimum wage, which has been at $7.25 an
hour since 2009, to $15 an hour.
 Public health effort and reopening schools ($400 billion): A $20
billion national vaccination program, $50 billion "massive"
expansion of testing, hiring 100,000 more public health workers,
$30 billion into the Disaster Relief Fund for PPE, etc. $130 billion to
open most schools by spring. He also wants OSHA to issue rules
that protect all workers.
 Support local communities ($440 billion): Help for governments
dealing with revenue shortfall to keep front line public workers on
the job. Small business grants and loans. $20 billion for public
transit agencies.

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 Beefing up cybersecurity ($10 billion): In the wake of the
SolarWinds hack which affected federal agencies, Biden wants to
modernize and secure federal information technology.
Healthcare
Official data from the United States Census Bureau indicates that the
uninsured rate at time of interview in 2019 was 9.2% vs. an uninsured
rate of 8.9% in 2018. Between 2018 and 2019, the number of people
without health coverage decreased in one state, but increased in 19
states. Overall, the number of people with no health insurance for the
entire year was lower at 8% in 2019, compared to 8.5% in 2018. 1
Biden railed against the Trump administration's countless attacks on
the Affordable Care Act. As President, he has promised to protect and
build on the ACA. Although he wants to ensure healthcare as a right and
not a privilege, he does not support Medicare-for-all or eliminating private
insurance because it would mean getting rid of Obamacare and starting
over on political negotiations. He also argued during the Sept. 12, 2020,
debate that Medicare-for-all would cost more than $30 trillion over 10
years.2
Taxes
President Biden wants a pro-growth, progressive tax code. His plan is
expected to raise nearly $4 trillion in additional revenue over a decade.
According to the Tax Policy Center, "The highest-income 20% of
households (who make about $170,000 or more) would bear nearly 93%
of the burden of Biden’s proposed tax increase, and the top 1% nearly
three-quarters."5 Here's a list of changes he wants to make:6
 Raise the top income tax rate back to 39.6% from 37%
 Tax capital gains and dividends at ordinary rates for those with
annual incomes over $1 million
 Tax unrealized capital gains at death
 Apply Social Security payroll tax for those earning over $400,000 a
year
 Close the stepped-up-in-basis loophole
 Raise the top corporate income tax rate to 28% from 21%
 Impose a 15% minimum tax on book income of large companies (at
least $100 million annual net income)
 Tax profits earned from foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms at 21%
Student Debt
Biden wants to forgive all undergraduate tuition-related federal student
debt for those who earn up to $125,000 and attended two- and four-year
public colleges and universities. He says he will fund this by repealing the
high-income "excess business losses" tax cut in the CARES Act. "That

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tax cut overwhelmingly benefits the richest Americans and is unnecessary
for addressing the current COVID-19 economic relief efforts," he said.3
He has several other federal student debt proposals including,
immediately canceling a minimum of $10,000 of student debt per person,
forgiving the remainder of loans after 20 years with no tax burden,
suspending monthly payments and interest of those earning less than
$25,000 per year and capping payments at 5% of discretionary income
for the rest, and additional federal loan forgiveness of up to $50,000 over
five years for those who participate in public service.3
Biden also want to make public colleges and universities free for all
families whose income is below $125,000. He has "fully endorsed and
adopted" Sen. Elizabeth Warren's plan to change the personal
bankruptcy laws he helped shape. Titled "Fixing Our Bankruptcy System
to Give People a Second Chance," it makes student loans dischargeable.
The proposal is to streamline and simplify the process of filing for
bankruptcy to make it cheaper and more flexible.7
Workers' Rights
Biden supports raising the federal minimum wage to $15. He also wants
to give workers more bargaining power by getting rid of "abusive" non-
compete clauses, removing rules in contracts that prevent employees
from discussing pay with each other, and stopping companies from
classifying low-wage workers as managers in order to avoid paying them
overtime.
He wants international trade rules that "protect our workers, safeguard
the environment, uphold labor standards and middle-class wages, foster
innovation, and take on big global challenges like corporate
concentration, corruption, and climate change."8
Made in All of America
In July 2020, Biden proposed a $700 billion plan to boost America's
manufacturing and technological strength. This involves government
spending of $400 billion on U.S. goods and services and a $300 billion
investment in research and development (R&D) on technologies like
electric vehicles, lightweight materials, 5G, and artificial intelligence.
"Biden believes that American workers can out-compete anyone, but their
government needs to fight for them," says his website. "Biden does not
accept the defeatist view that the forces of automation and globalization
render us helpless to retain well-paid union jobs and create more of them
here in America. He does not buy for one second that the vitality of U.S.
manufacturing is a thing of the past."9

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Infrastructure and Climate Change
As vice president, Biden once called New York's LaGuardia a third-world
airportin a speech about infrastructure in the U.S. "Look, we need roads,
we need waterways, we need ports to move our products. We need
highways and transit to get workers to and from work. We need lightning-
fast broadband to communicate. It’s not a luxury. It’s an absolute
necessity to compete with the rest of the world," he said at Brookings.
"We need a massive investment in infrastructure: roads, bridges, airports,
broadband. We’ve been lagging for too many years now, and we can
afford it."10
He wants to spend $1.3 trillion on infrastructure over a decade. This
includes $50 billion in his first year in office on repairing roads, highways,
and bridges, $20 billion on rural broadband infrastructure, $400 billion
over 10 years on a federal new agency to conduct clean energy research
and innovation, $5 billion over five years on electric car battery
technology, and $10 billion over 10 years on transit projects that serve
high-poverty areas.11
Biden's website says he supports the idea of a Green New Deal, that he
will rejoin the Paris agreement, and that he wants to ensure the U.S. has
a carbon pollution-free power sector by 2035 and reaches net-zero
emissions no later than 2050.12
He also wants to establish a new Environmental and Climate Justice
Division within the Justice Department. In order to build a 100% clean
energy economy and create millions of "good union jobs," he plans to
make investments in new infrastructure, public transit, clean electricity,
the electric vehicle industry, buildings and housing, and agriculture.13
In all, his climate plan will require federal spending of $2 trillion over his
first term. He doesn't want a ban on fracking but will ban new permits for
oil and gas drilling on federal land and offshore, plug abandoned oil and
natural gas wells, and restore and reclaim former mining sites.13
Rural America
Biden wants to help rural communities, which make up 20% of the U.S.
population, by fighting for fair trade deals, investing $20 billion in rural
broadband infrastructure, creating low-carbon manufacturing jobs,
reinvesting in agricultural research, improving access to federal resources
and funds for farming or small businesses, expanding health services and
medical training programs, and spending 10% of federal program funding
in areas with persistent poverty.14
The American Middle Class
Revitalizing the middle class and making it more racially inclusive was the
cornerstone of Biden's campaign. "This country wasn’t built by Wall Street

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bankers and CEOs and hedge fund managers. It was built by the
American middle class," he said at a rally kicking off his campaign.15
Although this sounds like something Sen. Bernie Sanders would say,
Biden cast himself as a moderate with sensible, achievable plans rather
than the leader of "a revolution" against economic inequality. "I don’t think
500 billionaires are the reason why we’re in trouble," he said in a speech
at a Brookings Institution event in 2018. "The folks at the top aren’t bad
guys."10
But he does believe a growing and thriving middle class, which he likes to
think of more in terms of values and lifestyle rather than an income group,
is important for social and political stability in the U.S. He blames the lack
of opportunities and optimism in the country for "phony populism" and "a
younger generation that’s questioning the very essence of our capitalist
system."10
According to Pew Research, 52% of American adults lived in middle-
income households in 2018. These are adults whose annual household
income is two-thirds to double the national median after incomes have
been adjusted for household size. The annual income range for a middle-
class household of three in 2018 was $48,500 to $145,500.16
The U.S. has a proportionally smaller middle class than many advanced
economies, and the income disparity between groups in the middle class
is growing, according to Pew. Moreover, while the top 20% have fully
recovered from the Great Recession, the middle class has not yet
reached its previous peak in 2007, according to Brookings experts.17
"Folks in the middle class are in trouble. It’s not just their perception. They
are in trouble," said Biden.10
.