FDR Needed Two Global Crises to Reshape the Economy. Will Biden?
Centrist Democrats threatened FDR’s transformative agenda until WWII came along. Social unrest and China weigh in the balance if Biden can’t crush a similar revolt.
Like FDR, Biden faces a cautious American public.
Source: Bloomberg
President Joe Biden’s transformative economic agenda is under threat from centrists in his own party. If his program is stymied, it won’t be the first time a Democratic rebellion has curtailed a president’s big dreams — it also happened to Franklin D. Roosevelt, after his reelection in 1936.
Like FDR, Biden came into office in the middle of a crisis and immediately launched into a flurry of activity. And like FDR, his approach focused both on combatting the threat of the moment and on transforming the U.S. economy in ways that were long overdue. The U.S. needs bold action to transition to clean energy, and it needs to curb inequality and economic insecurity in order to tamp down social unrest. It also needs industrial policy to meet the competitive threat from China — something that so far has only been pursued to a very modest degree.