CHICAGO — President Joe Biden sought to revitalize support for his reelection among middle-class voters before a Chicago audience Wednesday, branding his efforts at economic growth, job creation and inflation fighting as “Bidenomics” to counter lagging job approval ratings.
Speaking from a lobby at the Old Post Office to launch an outreach tour and unveil an early campaign theme, Biden touted economic growth he says is driven from the bottom up through government investment in contrast to tax cuts for the wealthy and the trickle-down philosophy of “Reaganomics” launched by Republican Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.
“Today, the U.S. has had the highest economic growth among the world’s leading economies since the pandemic. We’ve added over 13 million jobs, more jobs in two years than any president has added in a four-year term. And folks, that’s no accident. That’s Bidenomics in action,” Biden said in a 37-minute speech, noting 800,000 of those jobs were in the manufacturing sector.
Biden detailed a 15-year high in the number of people in the workforce, an unemployment rate that dropped below 4% years earlier than predicted following the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing wages and a decrease in the rate of inflation without a major recession.
“Bidenomics is about building the economy from the middle out and bottom up, not the top down. And there’s three fundamental changes we decided to make with Congress to be able to do it,” Biden said. “First, making smart investments in America. Second, educating and empowering American workers to grow the middle class. And third, promoting competition to lower costs to help small businesses.”
Showing a willingness to engage 16 months before next year’s general election in a prospective rematch with his 2020 opponent, former President Donald Trump, Biden sought to draw several economic contrasts with the Republican — though not by name as Biden referred to Trump only as “my predecessor.”
“My predecessor enacted the latest iteration of this failed theory — tax cuts for the wealthy,” the Democratic president said. “The trickle down approach failed the middle class. It failed America. It blew up the deficit and increased inequity and it weakened our infrastructure. It stripped the dignity, pride, hope of communities, one after another.”
In another shot at Trump, Biden said, “My predecessor talks a lot about increasing manufacturing. Remember infrastructure week? Infrastructure week became infrastructure week, week, week, week, week. Never happened. We got infrastructure decade done right off the bat.”
In a statement, Trump’s campaign labeled “Bidenomics” as the opposite of the former president’s strategy.
“Every plank of President Trump’s economy makes it easier, more attractive for American jobs, American workers and American families in the U.S. Every plank of ‘Bidenomics’ hurts jobs and workers in America and rewards outsourcers and foreign producers,” the Trump campaign said.
While the term “Bidenomics” was first used as a derisive term by the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, Biden said he was now embracing it as a reference to a theory of government stimulus. Banners and signs featuring the phrase surrounded Biden as he spoke.
The "Bidenomics" theme, which is expected to be promoted by the president, Vice President Kamala Harris and other administration officials across the country through July 15, is aimed at proposing laws focused on infrastructure, manufacturing and clean energy. The barnstorming comes as Biden’s job approval numbers have averaged below 45% for more than a year.
Earlier this week, the White House promoted a $42 billion investment to bring high-speed internet service to underserved areas as part of a new infrastructure package as well as the CHIPS and Science Act for aiding in the 20-year construction of the nation’s largest semiconductor manufacturing facility in upstate New York.
While the White House acknowledged inflation remained a concerning factor, Biden noted the inflation rate has fallen and the administration contends Americans have higher net worths and higher real disposable incomes than before the pandemic.
Despite his low job approval ratings, the administration contends there is widespread public support for Biden’s top legislative accomplishments, including infrastructure acts that enhanced roads, water, broadband and the electrical grid.
Biden also took a swipe at Republican U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who voted against the sweeping infrastructure law that included broadband investment, but this week on social media said it was “great to see Alabama receive critical funds to boost ongoing broadband efforts.” Biden said he would see Tuberville “at the groundbreaking.”
In addition to promoting the nation’s post-pandemic economy under his watch, Biden also coupled the Chicago visit and other trips with fundraising. After his speech, he attended two fundraisers at the J.W. Marriott in the West Loop, one hosted by Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Biden also is scheduled to hold fundraising events in New York on Thursday with the close of the second quarter campaign finance period occurring Friday.
Appearing before about 200 Biden donors, Pritzker, himself a possible future presidential candidate, castigated Republican White House hopefuls for pushing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” conservative agenda.
“The 2024 Republican hopefuls are all embracing the most extreme positions in order to win over the MAGA Republican base,” Pritzker said. “As what we’ve seen among MAGA Republicans is that they would use the power of the presidency once again to divide the nation, to cause chaos, to take away people’s freedoms and their reproductive rights and they would benefit themselves and their special interest backers.”
Biden drew cheers from donors when he vowed to push for a federal law codifying a woman’s right to abortion and said Republicans “ain’t seen nothing yet” when it comes to anger from women over GOP efforts to curtail access to the procedure.
He also pledged support for a federal assault weapons ban, noting the nation previously had such a law, and asked, “Who the hell needs a magazine that holds 100 rounds?”
It was Biden’s first trip to Chicago since announcing in April that he had selected the city to host the Democratic National Convention in August 2024 for his renomination for president. It will be the first time Democrats will bring their every-four-year nominating assembly to the city since President Bill Clinton’s renomination in 1996.
Biden’s most recent visit to Chicago was in May of last year when he spoke to the national convention of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers at McCormick Place.
Biden’s arrival came as Chicago was dealing with exceedingly poor air quality as a result of Canadian wildfires. Aboard Air Force One to Chicago, a Biden spokeswoman said the White House did not consider canceling the event due to the air quality and said the U.S. is monitoring air quality conditions and assisting Canadian authorities in trying to extinguish the fires.
More presidential politicking occurred downstate where Casey DeSantis, wife of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, held a fundraising event in Springfield. Gov. DeSantis has finished a distant second to Trump for the GOP 2024 nomination in recent weeks of polling.
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