Bidenomics Has a Big Problem: Too Many Goals

Joe Biden during his 2020 presidential campaign pitched government as the solution to a cascade of historic crises of which the pandemic was merely the most urgent. Now, with his eyes on a second term, he’s crisscrossing the country to promote a multitrillion-dollar effort to upgrade America’s crumbling infrastructure, supercharge the country’s energy transition and build out its leading-edge industries. He wants to do it all while reversing the decades-long offshoring of manufacturing jobs, bolstering the sagging fortunes of the middle class and tackling gender and racial inequality. Is Bidenomics trying to tick off too many boxes at once?

Take the administration’s $369 billion plan to curb planet-warming greenhouse gases, part of the landmark climate law Congress passed last summer. Dig into the details, and you’ll find national security and economic objectives alongside environmental ones.