How Joe Biden plans to make the case for “Bidenomics”
In a major speech in Chicago, the president will forcefully reject Reaganesque trickle-down policies in favor of building more in America, investing in American workers, and promoting competition.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
After several days of hype, President Joe Biden today will travel to Chicago, the city he’ll accept his party’s nomination for reelection in a little over a year, to give a major speech about Bidenomics — his vision for an economy that works for families and communities that have long been written off and left behind.
The speech has been billed as a full-throated rejection of the trickle-down economics that former President Ronald Reagan popularized in the 1980s and that the Republican establishment has sustained in the decades since through unwarranted tax cuts and deregulations. It will also feature receipts from the expansive legislative record Biden and congressional Democrats amassed during two years of one-party rule in Washington.
What you likely won’t hear are any new policy proposals to undergird the president’s reelection campaign. And that’s for two reasons.
First, in a divided Congress with a dysfunctional Republican-controlled House, there’s no upside to introducing ambitious plans that won’t see floor action.
And number two, White House and Biden allies feel as though most Americans are unaware of the impact of the four big laws the president signed during the first half of his first term. (Those laws are the American Rescue Plan, Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, CHIPS and Science Act, and Inflation Reduction Act, for the uninitiated.) The thinking inside the administration is there’s enough economic data to prove Biden right so now it’s time to brag about it.
“Bidenomics are working,” State Sen. Shevrin Jones (D-Fla.), a member of the Biden campaign’s National Advisory Board said in a statement to Supercreator. “President Biden knows that we can only build and grow our economy from the middle out, not the top down. That’s why he’s laser focused on lowering costs for families and directly empowering and investing in people and communities.”
Jones, who is unrelated to your Supercreator Daily author, pointed to the announcement this week of over $40 billion dollars to connect everyone in America to affordable, high-speed internet as the latest example of the administration producing tangible results for historically marginalized communities.
“It will open up incredible doors of opportunity for millions of Americans — from the young people who otherwise would not have broadband access to pursue higher education, to entrepreneurs in rural areas, to underserved communities of color who already face barriers when it comes to employment, health, banking, education, and other key components of our society,” Jones said. “These important investments will undoubtedly increase connectivity, help close the digital divide, and build a more inclusive economy.”
In a memo to congressional Democrats and other Biden surrogates on Monday, White House senior advisors Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon wrote that the pandemic presented Biden with a fork-in-the-road moment when he took office: A) Return to the pre-COVID economy where corporations and the wealthy got massive tax cuts while Americans were starved of critical investments, factories were closed and jobs were outsourced overseas or B) reconstruct the system to build more in America, invest in American workers, and promote competition with lowering costs for families as the north star.
But Republicans rail against Bidenomics as an excuse for Democrats to spend money America doesn’t have.
The White House says it’s Biden and Democrats who are the stewards of fiscal responsibility though: During his first two years in office, the president reduced the deficit by a historic $1.7 trillion (thanks in part to the expiration of several emergency pandemic response provisions, FWIW). His 2024 budget would cut the deficit by $2.5 trillion more by raising taxes on wealthy individuals and big corporations while keeping them flat for anyone earning less than $400,000. And the budget agreement he negotiated with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and signed into law this month will reduce the deficit by an additional roughly $1 trillion over the next decade.
Meanwhile, House Republicans plan to pass a tax bill that, as Supercreator reported earlier this month, would add billions of dollars to the deficit and save the poorest fifth of Americans an average of just $40 per person next year.
But despite the president’s strong record, recent polling suggests it’s not clicking with most Americans.
Democrats trail Republicans on the economy, according to a new Pew Research survey. And although it’s cooled in recent months, inflation remains a top concern facing the nation with 77 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents listing it as a “big problem.”
Not to mention, the rent is still too damn high and too many Americans are burdened by a national housing crisis.
“I think it is going to be important over a medium term of several years to see greater housing supply, and that will help to provide longer-term solutions,” Lael Brainard, Director of the National Economic Council, said on Tuesday. “But even in the short run, if you look at the data on rent, for instance, the average rent is projected to come down for Americans over the second half of this year, providing really important relief to a lot of American families.”
Notwithstanding the aforementioned polling, the White House argues there’s data that proves Bidenomics are strongly supported by the American people who back the specific provisions in the president’s signature legislation even if they’re unfamiliar with the laws themselves. When it comes to the president’s 2024 budget proposal, 54 percent of Americans support proposals like free community college, free universal preschool, and increased funding for early care and education programs. And his plan to limit junk fees has overwhelming bipartisan support.
It’s a paradox that has dogged the president since he was elected: So many folks love his policies but just aren’t that into him.
His top aides hope the upcoming weeks and months help shift this narrative though.
After the big Chicago speech, White House aides say the president, cabinet members, and senior administration officials will continue to fan across the country as part of its Investing in America tour to take the case for Bidenomics directly to the American people.
“I believe we can do great things,” President Biden said with his trademark optimism to donors at a fundraiser on Tuesday evening. “I really do.”
👋🏾 Hi, hey, hello! Welcome to Supercreator Daily, your morning guide to the politicians, power brokers, and policies shaping the American creator experience. It’s Wednesday, June 28, 2023. We’re halfway to another summer Friday!
TODAY IN POLITICS
All times Eastern
8 a.m. President Biden will receive his daily intelligence briefing.
9:10 a.m. The president will leave Washington, DC and arrive in Chicago at 11:15 a.m.
1 p.m. President Biden will speak about Bidenomics.
2:15 p.m. The president will participate in a campaign fundraiser.
5:30 p.m. President Biden will leave Chicago and return to the White House at 7:45 p.m.
Vice President Harris is in DC and has no public events scheduled.
The House and Senate are out.
THEY DID THAT
→ The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision rejected a fringe legal theory and reaffirmed state courts have the authority to supervise a state legislature’s power to regulate federal elections in a victory for voting rights advocates. The final seven decisions of the court’s term, including cases related to affirmative action, LGBTQ+ rights, and student loan debt relief, are expected on Thursday and Friday.
→ House Speaker Kevin McCarthy doubted former President Trump’s ability to win the general election in 2024. Then he backtracked after Trump’s people got pissed.
→ Rep Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) introduced a resolution honoring her state’s LGBTQ+ community in the face of anti-drag and anti-trans legislation supported by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. The resolution is supported by eight members of Texas’s Democratic congressional delegation: Reps. Colin Allred, Greg Casar, Joaquin Castro, Lloyd Doggett, Veronica Escobar, Lizzie Fletcher, Al Green, Sheila Jackson-Lee.
→ Reuters examined the genealogies of America’s political elite and found that a fifth of the nation’s congressmen, living presidents, Supreme Court justices, and governors are descendants of ancestors who enslaved Black people. More than a quarter of the last Senate (28 members) can trace their families to at least one slaveowner. And President Biden and every living former US president are direct descendants of slaveholders (Jimmy Carter, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama through his mom’s side). Donald Trump’s ancestors came to America after slavery was abolished.
→ President Biden and former President Obama had lunch at the White House yesterday afternoon. “They always look forward to seeing each other and having the chance to sit down in person,” White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Dalton said.
→ President Biden spoke candidly about abortion during a fundraiser in Maryland: “I’m a practicing Catholic. I’m not big on abortion, but guess what? Roe v. Wade got it right,” he said of the overturned Supreme Court decision that protected the right to abortion care.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
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“The con artists who blame Ukraine aid for America’s social problems” by Alaric DeArment
“How to ask for a raise” by Alison Green
“Goodbye. Ozempic” by Daniel Engber
“An oral history of Miguel’s ‘Sure Thing,’ a viral success and pop radio hit after 15 years” by Mankaprr Conteh
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