So, Biden has unveiled a more final draft of his families plan, which I previously looked at, but in a much more broad way.
It's going to be $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years, or $180 billion a year. That's not a massive amount. Idk why people insist on measuring "plans" in 10 year increments, it just makes them sound big and scary and ERMAHGERD THE FEDERAL BUDGET IS ONLY SUPPOSED TO BE $4 TRILLION A YEAR HOW CAN YOU PAY FOR THIS?! It's kind of like when the right points out the unfunded liabilities of social security are like $75 trillion but that's over 50 years or something. I mean, it's hacky, it's dishonest, it's just a right wing trick to scare people.
Say it with me, $180 billion...a year. That's how much this plan is.
To break it down $80 billion a year in in tax cuts to the middle class. This is fine if you're a fiscal conservative but given my UBI approach, yeah, it's more money in their pocket, but UBI would likely have a similar effect while ending poverty.
So that's actually $100 billion a year of...stuff.
$22.5 billion a year is for paid family leave. While this is nice and I can't argue with that price tag, it is but a band aid within the jobist paradigm.
Another $22.5 billion a year is for subsidies for childcare. Subsidize daycare so the parents can work. Again, makes sense within the jobist paradigm, but I'm pretty sure if we had UBI people could just take care of their kids.
Like, let me just do a tangent into how stupid GDP is. If a mother takes care of her kids and doesn't go to work, their labor is essentially "worthless" from a capitalist perspective. However, if a woman gets a job rather than takes care of her kids, well, that improves GDP. And if the woman pays someone else to take care of her kids, that's yet another job. JERBS! That's what our economic productivity statistics measure. How much paid work is being done. It doesn't matter if the mother could've easily been given a UBI and stayed home and took care of her own kids while the daycare worker could've gotten another job doing something else, we tend to valorize something because it's a job, and if it isn't, it's worthless. That's essentially an argument made by feminists for UBI in the first place btw. UBI recognizes that most people actually do unpaid work in the economy and this is severely underappreciated. But I digress.
I know, I know, I'm being kind of unfair to Biden here. Biden's plan is....interesting. It's accomplishing some significant goals very cheaply, and while they are baid aid goals that were low on my own personal priorities list, they are still nice.
But yeah, it seems like this plan would heavily subsidize childcare and make it affordable, similar to the medicare extra healthcare plan I covered.
$20 billion will go to universal preK. Again, if this could be done this cheaply, I don't see why we didn't do this a long time ago. These are significant goals to be done quite cheaply.
And finally, this is where we get to one of my medium priorities: $11 billion a year on free community college. I'm sorry, what? This is actually a pretty bad bill. Like, it's a band aid. Community college for 2 years is something, but Bernie wanted free four year schools, and given how many times I hear people complaining in healthcare debates about how we need all of these expansive doctor salaries because they have student debt, we should be doing more. I mean, really, education should be free. At least four years, if not longer. And student debt should be forgiven.
Apparently the plan also covers things like Pell grants, other low income grants, and money for HBCUs. These are band aids. Tiny, tiny, band aids. I had a pell grant once. It was a drop in the bucket. Doubling the amount doesn't solve the problem. It's a symbolic gesture. And idk why (actually I do, idpol) there's so much focus on HBCUs and the like. It just seems like blatant pandering to the black community while being as vapid as everything else proposed here.
I mean, don't get me wrong, this plan does some good things. Paid family leave, universal preK, and subsidized childcare are all something. And I support free college in theory, I just think this plan is a band aid.
But that's the problem I have with Biden. I mean, the dude is doing more than I thought he would, but these are band aids. As he said before he was elected, "nothing will fundamentally change."
Even worse the article fears that even this might be too extreme and that he might not be able to pass even this. It's mentioned the republicans counteroffered a $57 billion a year plan, and that would likely be more anemic.
This is why I don't like centrist democrats. They compromise up front and then they water it down from there. Like, you could argue even I compromise sometimes, but I do stuff like go from medicare for all, to medicare for all...who want it. Speaking of healthcare, the article mentioned healthcare isn't even mentioned here, outside of a $20 billion a year plan to make some premium reductions from the ACA era permanent. Where's the public option, Joe? Where's the public option?
I know centrists and neolibs will swoon over this, but yeah, I'm not impressed. Then again as I keep saying liberals are the real conservatives these days, with the right being full on regressive. They just are satisfied to tinker at the edges and they're they're so wonderful because they passed a couple $20 billion plans.
*sigh*...freaking libs...
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