Some progressives want to remove bureaucratic obstacles to growth—in the service of Democrats and big government.
by Christian Britschgi
Reason.com
In summer 2023, American progressivism was spending big and riding high. Despite razor-thin majorities in Congress, Democrats had spent the last two years enacting hundreds of billions of dollars in new subsidies—for green energy, public transportation, domestic manufacturing, scientific research, and more. This progressive pork was now in the hands of Democratic President Joe Biden to distribute as his administration saw fit.
Yet when California Gov. Gavin Newsom looked upon the piles of fresh federal cash, all he could do was despair.
“We’re going to lose billions and billions of dollars in the status quo,” he complained to New York Times columnist Ezra Klein in June. “The beneficiaries of a lot of these dollars are red states that don’t give a damn about these issues, and they’re getting the projects.”