Biden’s new ‘New Deal’ falls short in two critical areas

US PRESIDENT Franklin D Roosevelt’s “New Deal” helped raise America’s economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s and set the country on course to become a superpower. And now, for the first time in decades, we have someone in the White House who has a new New Deal within his grasp.

President Joe Biden’s infrastructure investment bill echoes Roosevelt’s expansive public works projects; his vocal support for organised labour, his targeted debt relief efforts and his plans to strengthen domestic high-tech manufacturing evoke other Roosevelt priorities.

The Inflation Reduction Act, too, includes money to bolster public infrastructure and address climate change, both goals Roosevelt most likely would have embraced, given his support for public works and conservation.