Joe Biden has been a neoliberal ghoul all his life and has helped oligarchs from a position of power. In recent times—perhaps due to pressure and threat from populists—he has adopted policies such as the recent large stimulus.

Biden is also talking of raising taxes on corporations and Janet Yellen, the US Treasury Secretary has proposed a minimum tax on corporations across countries, to prevent a race to the bottom policies.

Of course none of this means that they’re ditching neoliberalism. It is just a change to maintain the status quo. Elite preservation, basically.

There have been apologia from the left such as by J.W. Mason who has announced that there is a decisive break from neoliberalism! In general the left loyalty in the United States is the highest now, and that’s a sad thing. You won’t find for example, economists criticising Janet Yellen for conflicts of interests after taking $7.2 million in speaking fees from Wall Street, a kind of a bribe.

But there’s something even worse now. Stephanie Kelton one of the leading voices of neochartalism (or “MMT”), has a new opinion article Biden Can Go Bigger And Not ‘Pay for It’ The Old Way for The New York Times with the description:

By focusing on how much revenue they hope to raise from tax increases on the well-off, Democrats risk limiting the scope of their ambitions.

The article is deceitful too, claiming it’s not opposed to tax hikes but in the ending we see:

If Congress and the White House want to be responsible stewards of both society and the U.S. dollar’s value, then rather than focusing on taxation of the rich, they should prioritize and supply exactly what it would take, in terms of real resources, to electrify the nation’s power grid, repair every deficient bridge, give caretakers a living wage, upgrade our railways, and deliver clean drinking water and high-speed broadband to every home.

So you know, trying to out-right-wing Joe Biden, the neoliberal ghoul!

The trouble with neochartalists is that while it’s true that output can be expanded by increasing government expenditure and not increasing tax rates, that doesn’t mean that one can have like government expenditure equivalent to 50% of GDP, with taxes at some 25%. Taxes have to rise, and while more output bring in more taxes, it might not be sufficient enough and tax rates have to rise too.

Obviously, neochartalists’ political positions are a suspect. Obviously the Biden administration’s language is like from a book on neoclassical economics with arguments about “fiscal responsibility” etc, but one of the most reactionary politician has agreed to raise taxes and that is some bare minimum in the path to economic equality, so why try to puncture it?