O pacote de US$ 3,5 trilhões para tentar colocar os EUA na frente de todos: vai funcionar? - Olivier Knox (WP)

 Apenas um país que pratica a TMM sem qualquer teoria, nem moderna, apenas monetária, consegue fazer esse tipo de injeção que vale por um pelotão de Keynes alinhados no Congresso.

Pode dar certo, pode não dar, mas só um país que pode exportar metade dos seus problemas para o resto do mundo, pois que possui soberania monetária (e daí pode praticar exuberâncias arrogantes) e exporta um pouco da sua inflação para os demais países, se permite trabalhar com essa ordem de grandeza.

Que não se tente fazer o mesmo aqui.

Esta matéria do Washington Post explica o que vem pela frente: não tem comparação com o New Deal, como pretendem os sabichões.

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Here are some of the big things in the Democrats' $3.5 trillion plan

By Olivier Knox
with Mariana Alfaro
The Daily 202, The Washington Post, July 15, 2021

President Biden traveled yesterday to his professional home for decades, the Senate, to pitch lawmakers face-to-face on a $3.5 trillion budget proposal that may be the largest effort to retool American government since the New Deal.  

Congress and the news media have started to go through what’s in the colossal project — it turns out $3.5 trillion buys quite a lot of projects and priorities, as long as you can keep your party unified, with a zero-vote margin of error in the Senate. 

The road to passage is torturous, but the Democratic proposal packs a presidency’s worth of policy (with a corresponding price tag), and might be the Democrats’ best shot at enacting Biden’s agenda before midterm elections in which they could very well lose control of Congress.

President Biden speaks briefly to reporters after having lunch with Senate Democrats at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

My colleagues Jeff Stein and Tony Romm reported: 

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“Senate Democrats on Wednesday offered fresh details about their sweeping $3.5 trillion budget proposal, promising that it would augment Medicare coverage, lower prescription drug costs, invest heavily in new programs to combat climate change and tackle long-standing policy priorities on immigration. … 

The budget package would pave the way for hundreds of billions of dollars in areas including elder care, home care, child care, prekindergarten, and paid family and medical leave, its sponsors said. On health care, it would open the door for millions of seniors to obtain vision, dental and hearing coverage on Medicare and allow more low-income families to enroll in Medicaid. And it would aid parents by extending the recently expanded child tax credit, the full benefits of which will start to be paid out this week.” 

Jeff and Tony note Democrats “plan to fund much of the proposal with new taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations,” which is as much a policy goal for the party as what that money pays for. 

My colleagues Seung Min Kim, Tony Romm, Mike DeBonis, and Marianna Sotomayor have a detailed look at Biden’s field trip and note this: 

“[A] long process lies ahead: Many of the party’s most ambitious spending ideas have yet to be translated into actual policies. On thorny issues like health care, immigration, climate change and taxes, the debate easily could take months and antagonize existing political fissures within the Democratic caucus, souring the current mood.” 

They also give a sense of the scale of the work ahead: “[I]t includes plans to enact a pathway to permanent residency for immigrants who lack legal status, although how that program would be shaped is to be determined.” 

There’s quite a bit of spending to fight the climate crisis —something progressives are likely to cheer even as pivotal centrist swing voter Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) has declared those provisions make him “very, very disturbed.” 

That’s not great for Democrats, who need all 50 of their senators to stick together to pass the proposal in the evenly divided Senate using a tactic called reconciliation that requires zero GOP support. 

At the New York Times, Lisa Friedman reports: 

“Democrats have agreed to include a tax on imports from nations that lack aggressive climate change policies as part of a sweeping $3.5 trillion budget plan stocked with other provisions aimed at ratcheting down fossil fuel pollution in the United States. 

The move to tax imports was made public Wednesday, the same day that the European Union outlined its own proposal for a similar carbon border tax, a novel tool that is designed to protect domestic manufacturing while simultaneously pressuring other countries to reduce the emissions that are warming the planet. 

The two actions in concert suggest that government leaders are turning toward trade policy as a way to attack climate change.” 

Lisa notes the plan “also includes a number of significant Democratic priorities on climate change, including a mechanism known as a clean electricity standard that would require power companies to gradually ratchet up the amount of electricity they generate from wind, solar and other sources until they’re no longer emitting carbon dioxide. 

There are also new tax breaks for wind, solar and other renewable energy, as well as electric vehicles, a ‘methane reduction fee’ and funding for a civilian climate corps, modeled after New Deal-era programs, to create jobs in addressing climate change and conservation, according to lawmakers. The plan does not specify how much money will be allocated to the various programs.” 

While Manchin, as the senator from a coal state, might be “very, very disturbed,” climate activists seem quite pleased, according to Matthew Daly of the Associated Press, who reported environmental groups are predicting “it would make ‘transformational investments’ in clean energy and jobs and put the nation on a path to cut greenhouse emissions by at least 50% by 2030. The plan also would move the country toward a carbon-free electric grid by 2035, with 100% of U.S. electricity powered by solar, wind, nuclear and other clean energy sources.” 

Matthew notes Manchin “signaled he will oppose plans to curb subsidies for fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas. Both fuels are crucial to his rural state’s economy. … 

Eliminating fossil fuels, which are major contributors to global warming, ‘won’t happen,’ Manchin told reporters Wednesday. ‘It can’t happen and it doesn’t do a darn thing but makes the world worse.’