Is Gov't Competent to Spend More Public Money?

Build Back Better, President Biden’s signature legislation, would be the fifth large federal outlay since the $2.2 trillion CARES Act of March 2020, followed by the $900 billion COVID relief package in December 2020, the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of March 2021, and the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure act passed in November (only $550 billion of which was new money). Even at the truncated BBB level of $1.8 trillion, those outlays over the past two years would total $8 trillion.

There are three main arguments against the additional spending. One is macroeconomic, that all this stimulus has supposedly contributed to inflation, a claim the Prospect has effectively refuted. The second is purely ideological; Republicans oppose social spending per se, and Joe Manchin is averse to America becoming an “entitlement society.”