Biden promises economic agenda akin to New Deal
DUNMORE, Pa. — Democrat Joe Biden turned his campaign against President Trump toward the economy Thursday, introducing a New Deallike economic agenda while drawing a sharp contrast with a billionaire incumbent he said has abandoned workingclass Americans amid cascading crises.
The former vice president presented details of a comprehensive agenda that he touted as the most aggressive government investment in the U.S. economy since World War II. He also accused Trump of ignoring the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis while encouraging division amid a national reckoning with systemic racism.
“His failures come with a terrible human cost and a deep economic toll,” Biden said during a 30minute address at a metal works firm near his boyhood home in Scranton, Pa. “Time and again, working families are paying the price for this administration’s incompetence.”
Biden’s shift to the economy meets Trump on turf the Republican president had seen as his strength before the pandemic severely curtailed consumer activity and drove unemployment to nearGreat Depression levels. Now, Biden and his aides believe the issue is an allencompassing opening that gives Democrats avenues to attack Trump on multiple fronts while explaining their own governing vision for the country.
The former vice president began Thursday with proposals intended to reinvigorate the U.S. manufacturing and technology sectors.
Biden called for a $400 billion, fouryear increase in government purchasing of U.S.based goods and services, plus $300 billion in new research and development in U.S. technology concerns. He also proposed tightening current “Buy American” laws that are intended to benefit
U.S. firms but that government agencies can circumvent.
Those moves would create 5 million new jobs, Biden promised.
He also emphasized previous pledges to establish a $15perhour minimum wage, strengthen workers’ collective bargaining rights and repeal Republicanbacked tax breaks for U.S. corporations that move jobs overseas.
For now, Biden has not said how he’d pay for the proposed new spending for manufacturing and technology. He’s identified repealing GOP tax cuts on corporations and the wealthiest Americans as the source of revenue for some of his proposals.