(Headline USA) Only 100 days into office and several trillion dollars of proposed spending later, President Joe Biden has won the favor of socialist Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the progressive wing of the Democrat party.
The reason for that optimism comes mostly from a series of proposed spending bills rolled out by the Biden Administration this year. So far, Biden has requested more than $6 trillion dollars in Congressional spending, not counting budgetary proposals.
Biden has proposed a series of bill and corollary tax hikes that cover a range of issues from free public college to paid family leave.
Sen. Sanders praised Biden’s litany of “tax and spend” proposals, telling NBC News that Biden has “recognized the enormous crises facing this country and the degree to which people have been suffering as a result of a pandemic.
“He has bold ideas, I think, for infrastructure, for climate change,” he said. “And he understands also that at a time when so many people have lost faith in government and we’re seeing a rise in authoritarianism that it is absolutely imperative that we develop policies where people see that government can work for them. I think he understands that, and that’s pretty big.”
Progressive leaders have shared the same excitement, expressing pleasant surprise that Biden has been so progressive in his policies and has selected cabinet members that pass the liberal litmus tests.
“I don’t think they would have been better if Bernie Sanders was the president,” Larry Cohen, who leads the Bernie Sanders affiliated group Our Revolution, told NBC News. “The question will be the tenacity. These are the best proposals you could ever expect, but the question will be fighting for those things.”
Republicans, though, have been critical of Biden’s lurch to the left and the hefty price tag that comes with it.
“Biden and his allies on the radical left have not learned the lesson of history,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who is running for the governorship of Arkansas, wrote on Twitter. “Socialism and government control is destined to fail. Freedom is the foundation and the hope for America!”
The plans will likely face a tough fight in Congress. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) summed up Republicans’ concerns.
“The Biden administration is taking us down the path of socialism and big government,” she said.
