Biden to Urge Federal Reserve to Take on Racial Wealth Gap

Discussion in 'Economics' started by Arnie, Jul 28, 2020.

  1. Arnie

    Arnie

    I saw this coming...

    By Jacob M. Schlesinger and Sabrina Siddiqui
    Joe Biden plans to unveil a new set of policies on Tuesday designed to narrow racial economic inequality, calling for greater funding for low-income housing, capital for minority small businesses and more infrastructure spending steered to Black communities.

    Expanding on a series of earlier campaign proposals aimed at reducing income and wealth gaps between Black and white Americans, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also plans to use a speech in Wilmington, Del., Tuesday afternoon to ramp up pressure on the Federal Reserve to take on a greater responsibility for the gaps, campaign advisers said.

    They said the former vice president will propose legislation that would broaden the central bank's current mandate of containing inflation and maintaining full employment -- and require the Fed to use "monetary and regulatory policies" to close "racial economic gaps."

    Mr. Biden's new demands that the Fed do more to address racial inequality comes as politicians across the political spectrum have leaned on the central bank to address economic problems beyond its traditional mission, such as bailing out small businesses during the pandemic.

    "The Fed plays an important role," a senior campaign adviser told reporters Tuesday morning, previewing the speech. "It seems like an obscure piece of the puzzle, but it's really important."

    Biden aides said he wasn't proposing any new spending Tuesday and was instead specifying how money in earlier proposals should be directed to minority communities and households.

    Tuesday's speech is the fourth in a series of policy rollouts that Mr. Biden has given over the past month to round out his economic agenda before the Democratic National Convention next month.

    His first plan focused on boosting American manufacturing with proposals designed to compete with Mr. Trump's "America First" trade platform, which helped the president win many union voters in 2016. Mr. Biden's other economic pillars centered on combating climate change and easing the burden on families struggling to care for their children and elderly relatives under the financial strain of the coronavirus pandemic.

    In rolling out the economic equality piece last, the campaign was trying to demonstrate that "the main thrust of this plan is to put racial equity at the core of our economic agenda in 2021," a senior Biden campaign official told reporters on a conference call ahead of the speech.
     
  2. Economically illiterate
     
  3. Specterx

    Specterx

    A revolutionary idea! Never before in American history has anyone tried to solve blacks' many problems by having the government spend money on them.

    It's as futile as sacrificing goats to make the rains arrive - but done on a large enough scale, might finally trigger some of that inflation economists have been searching for. Caveat emptor.
     
  4. Cuddles

    Cuddles

    I mean Trump and the GOP have been using the federal reserve to widen the gap, so why not use it to close it?
     
  5. VEGASDESERT

    VEGASDESERT

    The answer is education.

    Its not that complicated.
     
  6. IOW... "The Fed's money printing can solve any problem... so long as they print enough."
     
  7. xandman

    xandman

    What he really wants is more government control over Fed activities. Biggest piggy bank in the world.
     
    murray t turtle and jys78 like this.
  8. Wealth gap is not an issue. Poverty is.


     
  9. We are doomed with this type of thinking....like "well we spend it on military why not the homeless". Why not just print and solve all of the world's problems. Why stop
     
    Nobert and Bugsy like this.
  10. Rome. Turkey. Weimar. Zimbabwe. Others.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2020
    #10     Jul 28, 2020
    RGLD, apdxyk and Nobert like this.