Jamelle Bouie writes:

Last year, as he steamrolled his way to victory in the Democratic presidential primaries, Joe Biden told CNN that the pandemic was “probably the biggest challenge in modern history, quite frankly.”

“I think it may not dwarf but eclipse what F.D.R. faced,” he added.

Biden referred to Franklin Roosevelt again in an interview with Evan Osnos of The New Yorker. “I’m kind of in the position F.D.R. was,” he said.

And a week before the election, Biden gave a speech at Roosevelt’s winter White House in Warm Springs, Ga., where he promised to “overcome a devastating virus” and “heal a suffering world.”

In other words, Biden telegraphed his F.D.R.-size ambition throughout the year. And the first major bill of his administration is in fact an F.D.R.-size piece of legislation.

In addition to hundreds of billions of dollars in direct payments to most American families, the American Rescue Plan — passed without a single Republican vote in either the House or the Senate — extends federal unemployment benefits until Sept. 6 and makes the first $10,200 of those benefits nontaxable for households with incomes under $150,000 a year. It includes an extra $7.25 billion in small business loans; a $25 billion fund for “food and drinking establishments”; and more than $50 billion in transportation funding, including billions for transit. It provides $25 billion in emergency rental and housing assistance to keep Americans in their homes and off the streets. There are also billions of dollars in funding for personal protective equipment and the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

If Biden were just signing a bill to assist the public and end the pandemic, it would be a substantial accomplishment, if not quite an F.D.R.-size one. But there is more to the package than just relief; it also allocates hundreds of billions of dollars to sweeping reforms to the social safety net. [Continue reading…]