Joe Biden will almost certainly be the last U.S. president born as a member of the "silent generation" demographic group who were children during World War II, came of age in an economic boom that built middle class wealth and cemented the role of the United States as the world's leading industrial power.
Over the latter half of his life, Biden, 78, saw the share of national wealth going to that middle class fall and the gains from U.S. growth concentrate in a handful of regions. Now, with a roughly $2 trillion investment package unveiled on Wednesday, Biden wants to reverse that half century trend and steer capital to neglected people and parts of the country.
The Democrat's jobs and infrastructure plan and the corporate tax increase to help pay for it contrasts with the deference to private markets begun by Republicans with Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, and nursed through rounds of tax cuts and deregulation by both parties.