Biden the Former Deficit Hawk Wants to Be Biden the Big Spender

The Democratic nominee envisions trillions of dollars in new outlays to address the environment and inequality.

Joe Biden, who’s spent decades warning about the dangers of budget deficits, will inherit one of the biggest in U.S. history if he becomes president—and he’ll be in no rush to pare it back.

That’s the signal the Democratic candidate is sending after his campaign rolled out a $3.5 trillion economic program over the past month. It promises to invest in clean energy and caregiving, buy more made-in-America goods, and start narrowing the country’sracial wealth gaps.

The bill for this agenda is modest in comparison with the universal health-care and student loan forgiveness plans backed by some of Biden’s primary season rivals. Still, it would come right after the U.S.’s multitrillion-dollar fight to pull its economy out of a pandemic slump. This year’s budget shortfall is forecast to exceed 17% of gross domestic product, the most since the country mobilized to fight World War II.

All that red ink might have been a problem for past incarnations of Biden. First elected to the U.S. Senate in the 1970s, he has a history of urging fiscal restraint. In the 1990s he twice voted for unsuccessful Republican efforts to make balanced budgets compulsory by amending the Constitution. And as a presidential candidate in 2007, he signaled that he would consider trimming spending on Social Security and Medicare in the interest of sound public finances.

Since then there’s been a sea change in American politics and economics.

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