Biden’s Economy

[TexasTiger 14,526]

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/if-this-is-a-bad-economy-please-tell?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=35345&post_id=135538179&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email

[arein0 1,110]

I've been saying for a while the economy is taking off.

[homersapien 12,321]

‘Bidenomics’ was born as a put-down. Now, it’s a boast.

By Eugene Robinson

 

The portmanteau “Bidenomics” was coined as a mocking put-down. But now, President Biden is proudly embracing the term. And if recent economic trends continue, he might well have the last laugh.

For the White House, this has been the summer of Bidenomics. Since delivering a speech in Chicago on June 28 touting the results of his economic policies, Biden has made tour stops in Columbia, S.C.; in Philadelphia; and, this past Friday, in Auburn, Maine. Vice President Harris and various Cabinet officials, meanwhile, have fanned out across the country to deliver the same message.

Politically, Biden is leaning into a weakness and trying to turn it into a strength. The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows the president with just 38.3 percent approval on his handling of the economy, as opposed to 57.6 percent disapproval. Shockingly high inflation and the threat of a recession gave Republicans — who are very good at branding — reason to expect that “Bidenomics” would be a rhetorical cudgel they could use against Democrats in next year’s election.

The problem for Biden’s critics, though, is that Bidenomics appears to be working. And Biden has more than a year to drive that point home with voters.

Inflation, the most toxic economic poison for any incumbent president, was down to just 3 percent in June. That is still above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent; and gasoline prices have seen an uptick in recent days. But the June figure represents a dramatic decline from the peak inflation rate of 9.1 percent in June 2022.

Press Enter to skip to end of carousel

Republicans hooted last year when Biden and the Democrats enacted landmark legislation to combat climate change and named it the Inflation Reduction Act. But now, Biden is pointing at the consumer price index numbers and boasting: It worked.

Meanwhile, unemployment has been at or near 50-year lows for more than a year — in June, it was 3.6 percent. The economy grew at a healthy 2.4 percent in the second quarter, despite the Federal Reserve’s inflation-fighting hikes in interest rates. The stock markets are booming. The Fed no longer forecasts even a brief recession.

Coming out of the historic turbulence caused by the covid-19 pandemic, in other words, we appear to be on a glide path toward a soft landing. It would be political malpractice for an incumbent president not to boast about such rose-colored numbers.

The problem for Biden, of course, is that voters’ perception of the state of the economy is a lagging indicator. The president got a bit of good news on that front two weeks ago, when the University of Michigan’s benchmark monthly survey of consumer sentiment reached its “most favorable reading” since October 2021.

That suggests voters are feeling much better about the economy. But this optimism has not translated into a more positive view of how the president is handling the economy. Not yet, anyway.

Press Enter to skip to end of carousel

If the election were scheduled for this November, I’d question whether Biden had enough time to meaningfully shift his economic approval numbers. But there is plenty of time left between now and November 2024 to change those perceptions in his favor.

Two things need to happen.

First, the winning streak has to continue. Incomes have been rising faster than prices for the past four months, which means consumers are gradually catching up with inflation. But if I could predict exactly what’s going to happen with all of the economic data over the next 15 months, I’d probably start a hedge fund and make a few billion dollars. (And expect to pay my fair share in taxes.)

Perhaps most dangerous to Biden, politically, are gasoline prices, which have risen, on average, by about 20 cents a gallon over the last month, according to AAA. Filling the tank still costs much less than at last year’s peak. But gas prices are especially sensitive politically — they are posted on billboards for everyone to see — and they can be manipulated, including by foreign governments that might want to hurt Biden’s chances of reelection. If Biden’s opponent ends up being former president Donald Trump, I wonder what kind of shenanigans we might see from Saudi strongman Mohammed bin Salman.

Second, the president needs to keep repeating the Bidenomics mantra. This is entirely within Biden’s control, and clearly he’s ahead of me. The way to drive the message home, and to change perceptions over time, is to repeat it, repeat it, repeat it. And then say it again.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), of all people, helped Biden immensely when she framed Bidenomics as a continuation of the Great Society and the New Deal. By all means, Republicans, run against the ghosts of FDR and LBJ. I promise that JRB won’t mind one bit.

[homersapien 12,321]

Without a recession to exploit, the GOP has lost economic coherence

By Jennifer Rubin

 

After hollering for more than two years about President Biden’s handling of the economy, Republicans have lost the recession issue. And, worse for them, they don’t have a coherent economic vision.

Even grouchy pundits concede that the economy is solid, suggesting the administration is “sticking the soft landing,” as the Wall Street Journal put it. (“Fresh economic data this week reinforced optimism that inflation can fall without the U.S. suffering a recession,” the Journal reported.) Gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, rose at an annual rate of 2.4 percent in the second quarter. The Federal Reserve and many economists now do not expect a recession. To boot, inflation is abating.

“Employers spent 4.5% more on wages and benefits in April to June from a year earlier. … That marked a slowing from a 4.8% increase the prior quarter,” the Wall Street Journal reported. “The employment-cost index, a measure of compensation growth closely watched by Fed officials, also posted its smallest quarterly increase in two years.” Moreover, “the personal-consumption expenditures price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, rose 3% in June from a year earlier … down from a 3.8% rise the prior month.”

For some time, Biden’s economic results have far outstripped the media’s portrayal of the economy and the public’s perception of it. However, as consumer confidence and GDP climb and inflation falls, perception and media reports might finally converge with reality.

And what is the GOP alternative? Republicans certainly did not practice fiscal sobriety or spending restraint under the previous administration. Indeed, defeated and indicted former president Donald Trump scolds Republicans for talking about entitlement cuts.

Republicans not only enacted a $2 trillion tax cut that opened a gusher of red ink, but they also spent like there was no tomorrow. The right-wing Manhattan Institute conceded, “When President Trump entered the Oval Office, CBO projected the cumulative 2017-2027 budget deficits would be $10.0 trillion. When he left office four years later, CBO’s projected deficits for the same period were $13.9 trillion.” In addition, “The president signed or enacted $7.8 trillion in new initiatives, the costs of which were partially offset by $3.9 trillion saved from economic growth revenues and technical re-estimates of taxes and spending levels.”

Republicans did not repeal Obamacare; it was too popular. They did not eliminate government departments, as they’d promised for years to do. Aside from some crank think-tankers and rich donors, there is no grass-roots political movement for less government or less spending. In none of his presidential races has Trump run on small-government conservatism. Those who do get slaughtered in the primaries.

Moreover, GOP tax cuts that primarily benefited the rich made a mockery of any notion of “tax reform.” Republicans continued to make the tax code vastly more complicated, showering K Street lobbyists with special giveaways.

We’ve come a long way since Republicans preached fiscal restraint, limited government and free markets. Republicans now feed their special-interest donors, perpetuate crony capitalism and grow the debt.

Moreover, in the fury over niche culture-war issues, they’ve begun using government to punish corporate critics. Coupled with trade tariffs and anti-free-market restrictions on legal immigration, Republicans are more entranced with Viktor Orban’s style of strong-arm, crony capitalism than Adam Smith’s invisible hand of free markets.

Democrats have changed, too, thanks to Bidenomics. Tax increases under Biden and Obama were modest, rolling back a fraction of Republican predecessors’ cuts and exempting even the upper middle class. Meanwhile, in lieu of vast expansion of the social safety net, Biden adopted an industrial policy reliant on private industry to follow public investments. The result has been a bonanza of private investment, manufacturing and green energy development. Call it tempered capitalism or cooperative capitalism.

Republicans want to indulge their rich patrons, but Democrats seek to counter the gigantic power of Big Pharma (e.g., with modest cost controls on Medicare prescription drugs), Big Oil (e.g., by spurring investment in green energy) and China (e.g., the Chips legislation). Republicans want to help tax cheats and expand the debt by hamstringing the IRS, and Democrats want to corral cheats and reduce the “revenue gap.”

Gone is the battle of Republicans’ free-market capitalism vs. tax-and-spend liberalism. A Republican Party devoted to cronyism and insistent on increasing economic inequality now faces a Democratic Party that modestly controls debt, spurs work (see the exceptionally high job participation among working-age people) and encourages private investment in forward-looking industries. So far, that has been a remarkably successful formula.

No wonder Republicans want to hyperventilate about Hunter Biden. They no longer have a recession — or an economic rationale.

[aubiefifty 18,446]

the gop does not care about facts. they are mostly karens and richards who believe i bunch of bull and yet denie all the crap rum has done as fake news. and again if you have to vote for someone who committed treason you are pretty sorry in my view. it is one of the most american things you can do. prove me wrong. and use real facts please.

[icanthearyou 4,468]

As it has been for decades now, the party in the White House highlights (cherry picks) the data that suits them, the other party highlights data for making a case against.

Meanwhile, those with extreme wealth proliferate a system in which,,, they will not pay their fair share in taxes but,,, they will loan the government money and, collect interest.  They will not pay wages that correspond to increased productivity and the rising cost of living but,,, they will make ridiculous loans to support irrational consumption knowing that the government will step in and fix any corresponding debt crisis.  A financialized economy that is more about "rent seeking" than real productivity has never been sustainable.  Narrowing economies are not sustainable.  Our economy is not built upon innovation and competition.  Our economy runs on the principles of pure power.

We need structural reforms that restore some balance in terms of wealth and power.  We need to return to the fundamental principles of fairness, equality, democracy.  We need to return to the common understanding of what our Constitution really means in the context of history, not what it means in the context of some contrived, perverted ideology.