FROM THE ENROLLMENT TO NEW YORK. “We have to prove that democracy still works. That our government works, and we can meet the needs of our people. “
This is the central message that President Biden launched last night in his first speech to Congress, and it applies as much to the challenges that the United States faces in its borders as it is to international ones. Because autocracies are challenging not only America’s role in the world, but the entire Western model of life, which since World War II has guaranteed peace, stability and prosperity for most of the planet, and certainly for us Europeans. This epochal confrontation is won by starting from the inside, and therefore by building an inclusive economy that responds to the needs of all citizens, defeats populisms, and relaunches the driving force of the United States. But then it is essential to extend this democratic renaissance to all allies, with whom we must work together to win the challenge in the name of democracy.
The head of the White House began what in normal years is called a speech on the State of the Union, boasting the concrete results obtained in the first hundred days of government, namely the acceleration of vaccines that is holding back Covid, the package of economic stimuli for almost two trillion dollars that are already reaching citizens’ pockets, the commitment to cut gas emissions by 50% to return to lead the fight against climate change: “America is moving,” he said with Biden pride. Immediately after, however, he added: “We cannot stop here.”
He then went on to explain the goals of the two big new initiatives he proposed, namely the $ 2.3 trillion infrastructure plan, and the $ 1.8 trillion household plan. In total, an expenditure of over 4,000 billion, which not only aims to rebuild roads and bridges, relaunch growth, or the essential scientific research to excel in the future, but intends to transform American society by making it more equitable. The president wants to guarantee education, kindergartens for children, health, tax breaks for the middle and lower class, so that the inequalities that have fueled populisms end, and everyone has the opportunity to realize their potential. He wants to finance his programs by taxing those who earn more than $ 400,000 a year, and large corporations that don’t pay taxes, just to rebalance the game plan. At the same time it wants to tackle systemic racism, reform the police and immigration, to make society more equitable and stable.
All this would put the United States in a position to live better within its borders, but also to face global challenges with renewed strength, which come above all from autocracies such as China and Russia. These regimes say that democracy no longer works, because the creation of consensus is too slow, while they are able to keep up with the times: “We know this is not true, but the US must prove in practice that they are wrong. “. This objective is achieved first by relaunching the economy, growth, the well-being of its people, and then by broadening the same mission to all allies: “No country, however strong, can solve all the crises to which we find ourselves alone. front, from nuclear proliferation to terrorism, from climate change to pandemics ». So the first attention must be paid to the Americans, because they are the ones who decide the elections, and we must start from them to rebuild. For example, by ordering all federal agencies to use public money only to buy “Made in USA”. But then it will be necessary to extend the same well-being, and the same feeling of effectiveness of democracy to the whole world, for example by becoming “the global vaccine arsenal”.
After the years of Trumpist isolationism, “foreign leaders tell me that they have noticed America’s return to the global stage, and are happy with it. But then they ask me: until when? ». Here is the key question, to which the new head of the White House hopes to give this definitive answer: “America is back to stay.”