Did we build back better?

Speaking Security Newsletter | Note n°191 | 5 January 2023

*I had a conversation about the omnibus bill last week with Briahna Gray. Check it out here (or wherever you can find the Bad Faith podcast).

**Many thanks to Barbara B., the newest supporter of this newsletter (and SPRI). Join Barbara and other inspirational people here.

Building back better

The slogan’s original, concrete meaning was established in Joe Biden’s budget request for FY2022, where it described his two-part economic agenda: the American Jobs Plan (for climate-focused infrastructure) and the American Families Plan (for social welfare). Building back better didn’t mean transient relief like what was provided in the (then) recently-passed American Rescue Plan (ARP). Its purpose was more exalted: “This is the moment to reimagine and rebuild a new economy,” read a White House statement on Biden’s infrastructure plan.

^Budget of the US government, fiscal year 2022. Office of Management and Budget.

In fact, building back better became the White House’s excuse for shooting down additional emergency relief bills like the ARP: pursuing short-term measures (like stimulus payments) would zap momentum from Biden’s multi-year, multi-trillion dollar physical and human infrastructure proposals.

Together, these proposals totaled about $4.5 trillion over 10 years. The original infrastructure plan released in March 2021 had $2.7 trillion in new spending provisions; the welfare plan unveiled in April 2021 contained $1.8 trillion. Though considerably less than what he promised progressive groups on the campaign trail, building back better still implied a vast government-sponsored investment to address things that the free market can’t or won’t fix — things like the climate crisis and crumbling infrastructure.

Not building back better

The sort of massive state-led economic intervention many hoped to see for climate and infrastructure only happened for the arms industry.

The infrastructure bill started out at $2.674 trillion in March 2021; it was $548 billion by the time it was enacted as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) in mid-November. Much of what fell out — including the most important climate provisions — were stuffed into the $3.5 trillion ‘reconciliation bill’ alongside the welfare programs of the American Families Plan. That bill was hollowed out, too: the House-passed version took it down to $2.155 trillion, and once the Senate was done with it, it was worth $437 billion and called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

Meanwhile, the Democratic trifecta approved $1.72 trillion in military spending for just two fiscal years (2022 and 2023). The combined funding of the IIJA and IRA is $985 billion, spread out over ten years. Dispersed as a per-year average, nine years of building back better yields $886.5 billion. The total amount of military spending authorized just for FY2023 is $898.4 billion (so far).

^Alt text for screen readers: Biden has enacted $1.7 trillion for the Pentagon. The infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act combined: $985 billion. This chart displays fiscal years 2022 through 2031 on the x-axis and U.S. dollars on the y-axis. It has two blue lines, one long and one short. The long one shows the cumulative spending of ‘building back better’ — the infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act combined and expressed as per-year averages. This line starts in 2022 and stops in 2031, showing $985 billion in total (labeled as “ten years of building back better”). The other, much shorter line displays cumulative military spending from 2022 to 2023, showing $1.72 trillion in total across these two years (labeled as “two years of military spending”). Data for this chart comes from public laws 117-58, 117-169, 117-103, and 117-328. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (which disperses funding from 2022 through 2026) and the Inflation Reduction Act (which disperses funding from 2022 through 2031) data points reflect average annual funding. Military spending figures include fiscal years 2022 and 2023.

-Stephen (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)

Find this note useful? Please consider becoming a supporter of SPRI. Unlike establishment think tanks, we rely exclusively on small donations.