In the two months since President Biden took office, he has signed a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill, launched a $2 trillion infrastructure plan, and another “American Family Plan” that may cost around $1 trillion will be released in a few weeks. This series of spending plans is the largest public investment since the United States began building interstate highways and launching the space race in the 1950s, which, in many people’s view, marks the arrival of a new “era of big government.
Big government as opposed to Roosevelt’s New Deal?
From the “American Aid Act” to the “American Jobs Initiative” to the “American Family Plan,” President Biden’s proposed total spending has exceeded $4 trillion. Behind the expensive price tag is a much larger vision – a $1.9 trillion stimulus bill that involves a massive expansion of social welfare programs; a $2 trillion infrastructure plan that spends only 6 percent of the total on roads and bridges, with the real bulk of the spending going to programs that promote racial, gender, and economic equality and drive a new clean energy economy. The real bulk of spending is on projects that will improve race, gender and economic equality, drive America’s transition to a new clean energy economy, boost advanced manufacturing and care industries, and capture the technological heights of the future.
In Biden’s view, government investment is the key to leveraging these ambitious projects, and the ensuing public costs will require more corporate responsibility, for which he has proposed raising the corporate tax from 21 percent to 28 percent.
Some call this a “big gamble” by Biden, betting that the government can boost the economy more effectively than the market, and can do what the private sector can’t do.
Christopher Faricy, a senior fellow at Syracuse University’s Institute of Public Affairs, lamented to the Voice of America, “The scale of the spending initiatives we’re seeing is really huge. He even argued that this is the strongest push for “big government” since Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society.
Big government” refers to a greater role for government in solving social problems, which is usually accompanied by an increase in the size of government, fiscal spending, tax burden and government regulation. The most famous acts of “big government” in U.S. history were President Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s in response to the Great Depression, and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s.
The opposite of “big government” is “small government,” which usually means that the government “slims down” and empowers itself to allow the free market to play a greater role. President Reagan was a key figure in making this concept popular. During his presidency, he introduced tax cuts, de-regulation, welfare reform and other initiatives that became known as the “Reagan Revolution. In his 1981 inaugural address, Reagan’s phrase, “Government can’t solve our problems, government itself is the problem,” became the motto of many small government advocates.
However, Reagan was not able to reverse the trend of bigger and bigger government since the Roosevelt New Deal. In terms of scope of functions, revenues and expenditures, and staff size, the U.S. government was in a constant state of expansion, even when a Republican president was in office.
Biden’s ambitious spending plans will clearly speed up the expansion of government. However, Professor Todd L. Belt, director of George Washington University’s Political Management Program, believes that while Biden’s proposed spending is large, in terms of how it will be spent, “big government” at this time is a far cry from the “Roosevelt-New Deal” era. He told the Voice of America, “Big government at this time is very different from what it was under the Roosevelt New Deal.
When you think of big government under Roosevelt’s New Deal, you think of ‘government programs,’ that is, programs that the government hires and pays for and operates,” he told the Voice of America. And one of the concerns about big government is that once such ‘government programs’ are set up, they’re very difficult to eliminate. But today, Biden’s approach is to have the government invest in programs that are serviced by the private sector, not to create new government agencies.”
The “big government” route faces controversy
For a long time, American society has been debating whether to follow the path of “big government” or the principle of “small government. For critics of “big government,” the rising deficit brought about by “big government” is a major concern for the economy.
David Ditch, a budget fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, told the Voice of America, “We have a $28 trillion debt, and that’s $225,000 per American family. That’s unsustainable. Federal government spending continues to grow faster than the economy, and that’s a problem. The more we spend, the harder it is to pay for it.”
In addition, many conservatives believe that government is naturally bureaucratic and inefficient, and that “big government” not only won’t solve the problem, but will lead to a waste of resources. Citing Biden’s economic plan as an example, Dickey said, “The massive spending we’ve seen especially this year has been opportunistic and not closely tied to the needs of Americans and the American economy.”
He also noted that the centralization that comes with “big government” is also unhealthy for American democracy.
“Biden’s spending plan would centralize functions currently in the hands of business, state and local governments in Washington. And Washington is so far away from most of the United States that it’s hard to make decisions like this that are responsive to the needs of different regions,” Dickey told Voice of America, “On top of that, we now face the problem of political polarization and resentment that comes from the fact that the bigger the federal government gets, the more important federal elections become, and everything is determined by which party happens to be in control of Washington at a given time is decided, and that’s very unhealthy. It would be better if there was more control in the hands of state and local governments and the private sector.”
“Big government” with popular support?
With the tug-of-war between “big government” and “small government,” the attitudes of the American public fluctuate with economic and security conditions.
When times are good, the public tends to favor “small government. Twenty-five years ago, for example, when the U.S. economy was just emerging from the difficulties of the early 1990s into a dynamic period of declining unemployment, low interest rates and low inflation, nearly 60 percent of Americans wanted the government to stay out of the way of things that should be left to individuals and businesses. That year, Democratic President Bill Clinton stood before Congress and declared that “the era of big government is over.” That gave him a landslide re-election in the subsequent presidential election.
And the moment of crisis was more of a reminder of why the federal government exists and its advantages over the private sector. At that time, the public often preferred a larger role for government. Thus, the Great Depression gave birth to the Roosevelt New Deal; after 9/11/2001, President George W. Bush Jr. successfully promoted a massive expansion of national security programs and military spending; and the 2008 financial crisis provided the public with the opportunity for President Obama to initiate sweeping economic and health care reforms. The 2008 financial crisis provided public support for President Obama to initiate sweeping economic and health care reforms.
Clearly, the change in public opinion brought about by the New Guinea virus epidemic has served as an east wind for Biden’s “big government” push.
Since last year, the U.S. public’s reliance on government has increased significantly. Gallup’s most recent “Annual Governance Survey” showed that 54 percent of Americans want the government to “do more,” the highest percentage seen on this question since the poll’s inception in 1992.
However, analysis generally suggests that such support may wane as the epidemic ends and the economy recovers. In addition, there are some signs of public opinion that hint at the headwinds facing the “big government” route.
For example, Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan has received an overall approval rate of more than 60%, but this is mainly due to the fact that Democratic voters gave it a 90% approval rate. The plan has only about 30 percent support among Republican voters.
Second, the U.S. public’s trust in government remains negative overall. Last September, only one in five Americans trusted the government to “do the right thing” all the time or most of the time, according to a Pew Research Center poll. A Gallup poll from the same period showed that only 25 percent of Americans chose between “more government services and higher taxes” and “fewer government services and lower taxes.
At the same time, about 60 percent of Americans have a negative view of concepts like “socialism,” meaning that even though they support a greater role for government, they still have strict boundaries for government and are wary of government reaching too far.
Centralized “big government” is not a good fit for China or the United States
For those who oppose “big government,” centralized “big government” is not a good fit for either the United States or China.
It’s not healthy to have a large central government controlling a large country,” David Deitch, a budget fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Voice of America. There are huge differences between regions in China. There are also huge differences between regions in the United States. In both cases, if you have a central government that keeps trying to push a one-size-fits-all solution across the country, it tends to have disastrous consequences.”
Recent Comments