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elleng

(130,147 posts)
Mon Nov 9, 2020, 05:15 PM Nov 2020

In a Divided Washington, Biden Could Still Exert Economic Power.

If Republicans control the Senate, a Biden administration could take a cue from President Trump and find ways to act unilaterally on some economic issues.

'President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. will take office in January with a weak economy weighed down by the resurgence of the coronavirus, millions of Americans still unemployed and businesses struggling and shuttering as winter bears down. . .

Mr. Biden has the power to pull some levers unilaterally, without congressional approval, and could influence the federal government’s economic policymaking machinery through an array of executive actions, regulations and personnel changes.

“There’s a tremendous amount that can be done without Congress,” said Felicia Wong, who serves as an adviser on the Biden transition board but who was speaking in her capacity as head of the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank. . .

here are some of the ways a Biden presidency could unilaterally influence economic policy.

Stimulus

*Economists and political advisers say Mr. Biden could seek other creative approaches if a Republican Senate blocks the kind of big spending package that Democrats have been pushing.

That includes providing student debt relief, . . . — Ms. Wong would favor as much as $50,000 to $75,000 for low- and moderate-income households. That move, she said, would strongly benefit workers from minority racial and ethnic groups.

The administration could also use executive authority to raise the minimum wage for federal contractors to $15 an hour, she said, providing a pay boost for many thousands of workers. . .

Taxes
Mr. Biden proposed trillions of dollars of tax increases on high earners and corporations in his campaign. . . in a few areas, a Biden administration could act on its own to raise taxes — largely by changing regulations governing how Mr. Trump’s signature 2017 tax law is carried out.

Several of those regulations apply to income earned abroad by multinational corporations that operate in the United States. A Biden Treasury Department could move to reverse a series of decisions that Mr. Trump’s team made after the 2017 law was passed . .

Trade

*the executive branch has a great deal of latitude when it comes to trade policy.

Mr. Biden will face several trade decisions in the short term, including whether to continue with Mr. Trump’s ban on TikTok and WeChat, the popular social media apps, and whether to retain America’s tariffs on Chinese goods and foreign metals.

Mr. Biden would not need congressional approval to deal with these and other outstanding trade issues . . .

“The administration would want to keep Congress in the loop, but they have a lot of discretion to shift away from Trump’s policies,” said Simon Lester, a trade policy expert at the Cato Institute.

Mr. Biden will also have broad scope to stake out his position on America’s economic relations with China . . .

Financial regulation

*A new crew of regulatory officials will have leeway to either undo those tweaks or to impose new ones — which will probably cut toward stronger oversight. . . any changes coming out of the Fed and its fellow regulatory agencies are likely to be small and steady.

“It is going to be a tough slog for the Democrats on the legislative front,” said Ian Katz, a director and financial policy analyst . . “The action is really with the regulators.” . .

Consumer protection
A Biden administration could exert huge influence over consumer protections, including those involving debt collection, payday lending and foreclosure abuse.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that the White House has the power to fire the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau without cause, . . That means Mr. Biden will be free to replace Kathleen Kraninger, the bureau’s current director, with someone who will more rigorously scrutinize businesses and ramp up enforcement.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/08/us/politics/biden-economy.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

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