The spending proposals that Senate Democrats plan to begin advancing this week amount to a massive gamble that the party can simultaneously advance two of its longest-standing economic goals without generating a political backlash or overheating the economy. …
In some ways, the Democrats’ bet that they can simultaneously turbocharge public investment and strengthen the safety net amounts to a modern equivalent of Johnson’s famous gamble during the 1960s that he could afford both “guns and butter,” funding the Vietnam War even as he substantially increased domestic spending through his “Great Society” agenda. The new Democratic agenda, with its dual focus on infrastructure and aid to working families, might be called “bricks and butter.” CONTINUED
Ronald Brownstein, CNN
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