"The last time energy and the economy grew at this rate was in 1984 when Ronald Reagan was telling us it’s an American morning," President Joe Biden said during a speech Wednesday, revising a line from President Ronald Reagan’s famous campaign ad. "This is going to be an American century."
Biden made the remarks during a speech at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, Illinois while stumping for his “American Jobs Plan” and “American Families Plan.”
In the 1984 Reagan re-election ad, “It’s Morning Again in America,” the campaign pointed to the economic gains made in the 1980s after record unemployment and rampant inflation that marked the end of President Jimmy Carter’s term in the late 1970s.
The ad was very effective in helping Reagan win a landslide victory against Democrat Walter Mondale, Carter’s vice president, in the 1984 election.
The proposed legislation is part of Biden’s “Build Back Better” agenda that the president claims will create millions of new, good paying jobs, and repair or replace bridges, roads, broadband, as well as electric and water systems.
That piece of the plan has reached agreement between Republicans and Democrats by investing more than $500 billion.
The other part of Biden’s agenda, however, is progressing through Congress’s budget reconciliation process which can circumvent a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
That plan would focus on free community college, preschool, and childcare as well as other “human infrastructure.”
“Does anyone today think that 12 years of public education will allow people to live a middle-class life? I don’t think so,” Biden said. “We should have 14 years of education. I want to add two years of free community college for everyone.”
The plan would also expand green energy programs to fight climate change, and clean up pollution, creating more new jobs, he said.
Biden said he would pay for the more than $1 trillion in increased spending through raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans, not to punish them, but to ensure they were “in the game,” paying their “fair share.”
He said that these plans would help “reimagine America” for future generations.
“We will show the world and show ourselves that democracy can deliver,” he said.
This comes after his administration has already passed some $1.9 trillion in spending through the “American Rescue Plan,” which was the fourth COVID-19 relief package to come out of Washington, D.C. in the year since the pandemic took hold of the nation, forcing lockdowns and the demise of many small businesses.
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