How President Harris could build on the Quiet New Deal

Policies that care for caregivers would fix major holes in our safety net

A lot has happened since we last looked at the Quiet New Deal, which is the Biden/Harris administration’s three-pronged approach to rebalancing government in favor of the people. But now is a good time to look back and forward.

You may remember that the prongs are:

1. Investing in a cleaner America

2. Elevating workers

3. Optimizing government

The great Jonathan Cohn looks at the policies that might make up President Harris’ 4th prong of the Quiet New Deal, which has elements of the other three. 

Let’s call it “Caring for the caregivers.”

It involves bringing back some of the most ambitious policy proposals from the Build Back Better bill, which morphed into the Inflation Reduction Act after President Biden sneakily got Joe Manchin on board for one of the most transformative pieces of legislation in American history.

Cohn reports:

But Harris could win, putting her in a position to lay out a legislative agenda. And there’s plenty of reason to think caregiving initiatives would be a bit part of that, including the fact that policy conditions — in particular, the expiration of Trump-era tax cuts that could free up trillions in new funding — could give Harris a shot at ambitious, even historic reforms if she has a willing Congress to go along.

“She could walk away from that first term saying that I brought America its first paid family leave and universal pre-K, and a refundable child tax credit that basically ends child poverty ― that’d be a hell of a legacy,” Bharat Ramamurti, former deputy director of the National Economic Council, told HuffPost. “That’s really within grasp.”

The piece also gives essential insight into Harris’s record as “the strongest paid leave elected [official] or candidate we’ve ever seen” and her deeply held passion for helping those who care for family members in need born of lived experience.

She’s led a career backing exactly the kind of policies that encourage people to have a family and care for their loved ones, which is what normal people do while weird forced birthers mock women who don’t have kids.

We know what we’re against in 2024, but it’s great to be reminded of what we’re for.