Biden’s Economic Program Is Disconnected — From Reality

Once more, with feeling, let’s talk about President Biden on the campaign hustings, desperately trying to sell something called Bidenomics. Read it and weep: “Bidenomics is about building an economy from the middle out the bottom up, not the top down. When I took office, the pandemic was raging and our economy was reeling.” Middle out, bottom up: What does that mean? No one knows. Just one quick footnote: The economy was “reeling” at a 6.5 percent annual growth rate. Today, the economy is actually reeling, at a 1 percent growth rate. Boss Biden gets another Bottomless Pinocchio. How about, “Unleash prosperity”? Now, that would be my kind of slogan. Or, how about, “A rising tide lifts all boats”? You know who said that? Democrat John F. Kennedy. Then, the late, great supply-sider Jack Kemp always talked about a rising tide lifting all boats. Then, Ronald Reagan used it all the time. In other words, everyone — everyone — benefits from a pro-growth economic policy. Trouble with Mr. Biden is he’s a stick-in-the-mud class warrior. Middle, lower, upper … diversity, equity, inclusion … woke. … It’s all left-wing gibberish. Mr. Biden says his “middle out, bottom up,” whatever that means, is “working.” Sure it is, Mr. President…. A couple of new polls are out today. YouGov just said 29 percent of voters approve of his inflation policy, while 61 percent disapprove. Overall, a recent AP/NORC (University of Chicago) poll says 34 percent of voters approve of Biden’s economic policy. Just 34 percent. So, we have a disconnect here between rhetoric and reality. Or, in terms of “middle out, bottom up”: real hourly earnings, a.k.a., middle class wages, are falling 3 percent at an annual rate. Real average weekly earnings are falling at a 5 percent annual rate. For the bottom quartile of income earners — which is $38,000 a year or less — they’ve declined by 2.3 percent under Joe Bidenomics. For the second quartile — which is $57,000 or less — real weekly wages have declined by 3.9 percent. So much for “middle out, bottom up.” Now, how about for the whole country? Cut out all this class warfare nonsense. Mr. Biden may be attacking Reaganomics, but after Reagan’s tax cuts went into effect in 1983, the economy grew at 6 percent at an annual rate for the next two years. Not 1 percent, 6 percent. Then after accounting for a second round of tax cuts in 1986, the economy grew at a 5 percent annual rate for the whole seven-year period of his presidency, between 1982 and 1989. After Mr. Biden’s $2 trillion American Rescue Plan, his landmark policy, a 6.5 percent economy delivered by President Trump sputtered to a 1 percent growth rate in Mr. Biden’s first full year, 2022, and early 2023. And after Trump hand-delivered a 1.4 percent inflation rate, under Bidenomics it soared to a 9 percent inflation rate, which destroyed family affordability and worker incomes. Here’s the most fundamental point: President Biden is pursuing the most anti-business economic policies since FDR, some 85 years ago. Mr. Biden has spent $6 trillion, raised taxes across the board, generated more than $500 billion worth of new regulations, waged war on fossil fuels, more warfare against large and small businesses, put together a massive vote-buying, grifting industrial policy, and engaged in the most central planning this country has ever seen. Big-government socialism has been jamming down crazy left-wing nostrums like Green New Deals, no gas-powered cars, no microwaves, no shower heads, and no gas-burning stoves — even for decent wood- and coal-fired pizza. Consumer prices have gone up 15.6 percent in two years, the economy is stagnating, and the country is unhappy. Steve Forbes calls it modern socialism through the regulatory state. Art Laffer would yell from the rooftop that taxes have consequences. The great free market economist Milton Friedman is turning over in his grave. If John Maynard Keynes were still alive today, he’d be screaming, “Stop, enough already.” Thomas Jefferson would ask, “Where’s the ‘life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?’” Adam Smith would send Mr. Biden an annotated version of his “Wealth of Nations.” Save America. Send Joe Biden into retirement. From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business Network.

Biden’s Economic Program Is Disconnected — From Reality

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