Among the many bad headlines for President Joe Biden's reelection campaign is the one that goes to the heart of his pitch to the American people: that you're better off now than ever before thanks to “Bidenomics.”
It's a fairly standard pitch among pols looking for a prolonged stay in office. But voters just aren't buying it, in large part because while some broad metrics of economic activity are, indeed, better than they were a year or two ago, there's the nagging problem that things just don't feel better – never mind less expensive:
People who fill their grocery carts and cars every week simply aren't buying the Bidenomics' narrative. In a poll done last week by CBS News, it is clear that Biden's credibility is in trouble. His job approval on the economy was 34 percent/66 percent approve/disapprove. Job approval on inflation was a remarkable 30 percent/70 percent approve/disapprove. Not surprising when 69 percent of voters said the costs of goods and services were going up not down.
When asked how much Biden's policies are responsible for the current state of the economy, 80 percent said either a great deal or somewhat, while 70 percent said their incomes were not keeping up with inflation. This response makes perfect sense when you look at the Presidential Inflation Rate of 16.6 versus the Presidential Rate of Hourly Earnings at 12.2 percent — leaving Bidenomics with a 4.4 percent negative wage gap.
Those are the sort of bad polling numbers that should cause consternation, angst, fear and worse among Democratic campaign professionals. But things could get even worse for Team Biden and the economic ideas Biden is counting on to keep him in the White House.
As Cato's Adam Michel wrote:
Whatever you think of the current economy and its causes, the unspoken truth of Bidenomics is that the part of his plan that's “working” consists of all the booze — more than $5 trillion in new deficit spending — and none of the hangover. Biden's $4.7 trillion in proposed tax increases are missing in action.
About those taxes…
Central to Bidenomics is raising the corporate income tax rate by seven points, to 28% — reversing the historic gains made when Congress cut America's business tax from the highest rate in the developed world to a bit above average. Investment, wages, and hiring increased after the tax cut. Returning to higher taxes on businesses will stifle investment and job growth.
Accounting for state taxes, Bidenomics would have U.S. employers paying top corporate tax rates of about 32%. The average rate among some of America's largest trading partners in the Organization for Economic Co‐operation and Development is 23%. It's 25% in China.
Demanding U.S. companies pay higher taxes than Mainland China imposes on its own companies. And yet, it still won't be enough to cover all of Mr. Biden's bills, in large part because – like the rest of official Washington, he ignores the major drivers of federal spending:
Buoyed by rosy economic assumptions in the president's budget, his tax increases are still insufficient to stabilize government debt as a share of the economy. Over the next several decades, automatic spending programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, will continue to grow unsustainably. Even with the president's tax plan, deficits would rise to 9% of gross domestic product by 2053 — only 1 percentage point lower than under current law.
A mildly competent Republican presidential campaign would be able to exploit the bad poll numbers and even worse policy prescriptions in Bidenomics to roll to victory in 2024. But asking for a mildly competent Republican presidential campaign may be asking too much of the current crop of candidates.
But there's still time one of them may drop the populist demagoguery and give a pro-growth, pro-free market alternative to statist “Bidenomics” a chance.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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His greatest weakness is his brain made of adam schitt!
Republicans have yet to have the intelligence to take advantage or the backbone to do anything for decades and that is why they are almost gone as a political party.