NOAM CHOMSKY SAYS ACTIVIST PRESSURE MUST SHAPE BIDEN AGENDA

Distinguished social critic and linguist Noam Chomsky of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Arizona says US President Joe Biden’s early agenda gives hope to the American people but activist pressure must be sustained to ensure that he pursues progressive reforms.

Chomsky offered an analysis of the two-month-old Biden administration in an interview with C. J. Polychroniou of Truthout on March 21, 2021, saying the administration’s performance, highlighted by the passage of the $1.9-trillion stimulus bill was “better than I’d anticipated.

Considerably so. The stimulus bill has its flaws, but considering the circumstances, it’s an impressive achievement” even as he noted it should have carried the $15 minimum wage per hour. He also cited Roosevelt Institute President Felicia Wong, who reflected that, “As I see it, both the scale and the direction of the American Rescue Plan break the neoliberal, deficits-and-inflation-come-first mold that has hollowed out our economy for a generation.”

“Biden’s strong support for Amazon workers, and unions generally, is a welcome shift. Nothing like it has been heard from the chambers of power in many years. In a sharp reversal of Trump legislation, the tax changes raise incomes mostly for the poor, not the rich. Economic Policy Institute President Thea Lee summarizes the package by saying that it ‘will provide crucial support to millions of working families; dramatically reduce the race, gender, and income inequalities that were exacerbated by the crisis; and create the conditions for a truly robust recovery once the virus is under control and people are able to resume normal economic activity.’ Optimistic, but within reach,” Chomsky argued.

Apart from these, House Democrats have passed other important legislation. H.R. 1 protects voting rights, a critical matter now, with Republicans working overtime to try to block the votes of [people of color] and the poor, recognizing that this is the only way a minority party dedicated to wealth and corporate power can remain viable.

The House also passed the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, 'a critical step toward restoring workers’ right to organize and bargain collectively,’ the Economic Policy Institute reports, a fundamental right that ‘has been eroded for decades as employers exploited weaknesses in the current law.’ It’ll probably be killed by the Senate. Even apart from party loyalty, there is little sympathy for working people in the Republican ranks.

Chomsky said Biden made a bad decision by not canceling the $50,000 student debt. “What the realistic options were, I don’t frankly know. Higher education at a high level should be recognized to be a basic right, freely available, as it is elsewhere: in our Mexican neighbor, in rich developed countries like Germany, France, the Nordic countries, and a great many others, with at most nominal fees. As it substantially was in the US when it was a much poorer country than it is today. The postwar GI Bill of Rights provided free education for great numbers of white males who would never have gone to college otherwise. There is no reason why young people of any race should be denied the privilege today,” he concluded.

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