No, the Democrats' Reconciliation Bill Is Not "Twice as Big" as the New Deal

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

By comparison, the $3.5-trillion-over-ten-years version of Joe Biden’s plan would have represented a rise in spending roughly equivalent to 1.5 percent of the country’s current GDP of $22.7 trillion — smaller than the analogous increases during the Roosevelt and Johnson eras. With the proposed figure for the current reconciliation package now coming in at less than $2 trillion, we’re potentially talking about an even smaller increase.

The biggest problem with trying to draw comparisons between the present moment and the 1930s, however, is that the scope of something like the New Deal can’t actually be captured in purely quantitative terms. As Kaye explains:

When Ron Klain makes that kind of remark, it’s another example of liberals just utterly misunderstanding the significance of the New Deal. They grab hold of it as if the New Deal was just a matter of legislating some programs and spending a lot of money, when in fact it was a vast mobilization of labor and a vast empowerment of working people. FDR actually said, “New laws unto themselves do not bring the millennium.” In other words, “You’re going to have to fight now.” So when they say things like “we’re spending more than the New Deal spent,” which is nonsense to begin with, they’re just completely leaving out that it was a vast mobilization and class struggle was at the heart of it.

Whatever its limitations may have been, then, the New Deal was premised on and enabled by a kind of political militancy that is nowhere to be found during the Biden era. It’s true that FDR commanded much bigger congressional majorities than Biden (though he also openly sought confrontation with powerful interests and had to overcome considerable opposition). In any case, whatever its merits remain once the Democrats’ reconciliation package finally goes to a vote on the floors of the House and Senate, there’s virtually no chance it will represent anything as transformative or lasting as the New Deal — nor anything “twice as big.”

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/11/biden-democrats-reconciliation-build-back-better-legislation-fdr-new-deal-comparison

[elleng]

1. 'liberals just utterly misunderstanding the significance of the New Deal.

They grab hold of it as if the New Deal was just a matter of legislating some programs and spending a lot of money, when in fact it was a vast mobilization of labor and a vast empowerment of working people.'

[Uncle Joe]

2. I'm not expecting

the corporate media do much if any quality coverage/televising of that dynamic, at least they haven't so far.

[JudyM]

6. I'm wondering

if there’s any chance the infrastructure bill has any “fair media” support tucked into it someplace. Seems that repukes would’ve been all over it, unless they missed it entirely…

[ColinC]

3. Exactly

Thank you

[Beastly Boy]

4. This doesn't prove Ron Klain's wrong.

Here is what Ron Klein said, and this comes from the cited article:
"It’s twice as big, in real dollars, as the New Deal was."

In real dollars. So what does the author of the article do? While he portrays Klain's statement as "The most clearly articulated version of the argument", he does his best to avoid addressing the argument. He compares the New Deal and the Biden plan spending in historic terms, the population difference, difference in real income, spending as percentage of GDP, the kitchen sink... Everything, except the real dollars comparison. Then he accuses Klain and other "Democratic partisans", evidently based on this remark alone, of "spinning a drastically pared-down piece of legislation as historic and transformative." And then he goes off tangent and never goes back to Klain's statement which is, in his own words, the most clearly ariculated version of the argument he is objecting to.

No, the spin is all Jacobin's. The article's author, Luke Savage, has absolutely no interest to address the strawman he concocted out of thin air.

Does the New Deal represent more than a spending budget? Sure. But WTF, why bring it up as an excuse to make a false accusation and bash the Biden plan?

And this is not even the most ridiculous part of the article. I just can't get over "Grasping for any available talking points to stave off progressive anger"!

[SharonAnn]

5. This short 1939 movie, "Trees to Tame the Wind" on YouTube is my grandfather's farm - New Deal

It was filmed on my grandfather’s farm in 1939 showing the success of the Shelter Belt program, part of the New Deal. The people in it are my grandparents, aunts and uncles, and my mother. It made the difference in farming in the Dust Bowl area of South Dakota.
Because of giving up some land for the Shelter Belt trees, they were successful at farming and all 7 children went to college. My life has been much different than it would have been if that farm had failed, like so many did.