INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — Since President Joe Biden assumed office in January 2021, unemployment has declined to a 50-year low at a steady 3.5 percent, more than 13 million new jobs have been created, $150 billion has been invested in the nation’s semiconductor manufacturing base, and inflation has declined for 11 straight months.
And things are just going to get better with 35,000 new infrastructure projects “coming to life across the country” following the adoptions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act (IIJA), also referred to as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
“That’s Bidenomics, and it’s working,” said Yvanna Cancela, White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs Senior Advisor and Special Assistant to the President.
Since President Biden assumed office, the Democrat-controlled Congress—until Republicans took the House in November’s 2022 midterms—has tacked $700 billion in federal allocations on top of a pandemic-spurred March 2020-August 2022 Congressional spending spree that added $7 trillion to the nation’s debt.
And things are just going to get worse, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating without significant spending cuts and dramatic changes to the IRA and IIJA, the nation’s $32 trillion national debt is projected to increase by five times to nearly $160 trillion.
That’s Bidenomics, and it’s not working, according to former Vice President and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Mike Pence, who served as Indiana Governor from 2013 to 2017.
It was a tale of two breakfasts on Aug. 16, the last day of the three-day National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) 2023 Legislative Summit, with Democrats praising Bidenomics on the one-year anniversary of IRA’s adoption and Republicans denouncing it in party conclaves on opposite ends of the sprawling Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis, Indiana.
The Democrat and Republican breakfasts were a rare display of overt partisanship during the annual NCSL Summit, which draws more than 5,000 state lawmakers, legislative staff, lobbyists, nonprofit advocates, and agency representatives from all 50 states and territories.
Democrats: Bidenomics A Boon
Ms. Cancela, the first Latina elected to the Nevada Senate and chief of staff to former Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, said since assuming office, President Biden has “signed over 300 pieces of bipartisan legislation into law, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, the Electoral Count Reform Act, and the Respect for Marriage Act, protecting the right to marry the person you love.”She said for President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, this is “just the beginning. We are just getting started. We will work to build an economy that works from the bottom up.
Ms. Cancela ran through a roster of statistics that, she said, confirm that the President’s economic plan is gaining traction and will deliver jobs that will increase the commerce-generated tax revenues that will stem debt spending.
President Biden “fundamentally believes a job is about so much more than a paycheck. When he talks about work, he talks about it being about dignity, about respect, about the ability to go home and say ‘things are going to be okay,’” she said. “And he has a great plan to make sure that happens. It’s Bidenomics, and it’s a fundamental break from trickle-down economic policies that have failed middle-class families.”
There are three key components of Bidenomics, she said.
“First, it’s making smart investments in America. It’s investing in our infrastructure, in our manufacturing, and in our clean energy economies,” Cancela said.
The second component, she said, “is empowering American workers to do that work. It’s increasing wages, educating workers, and supporting our unions,” drawing applause with the reference to unions.”
The third leg of the Bidenomics platform is “promoting competition and lowering costs. It’s like [banning] ‘junk fees,’ fighting to ban non-compete agreements, and making sure there’s a level playing field for us in all—and it’s working.”
Ms. Cancela said the nation’s 3.5 percent unemployment rate is the latest is a pattern of “new record lows,” marking the “longest stretch” of declining joblessness in “over 50 years.”
She said during the Biden administration, 13 million jobs had been added to the economy, which was in post-pandemic tatters, with nine million jobs lost in the preceding year when he assumed office.
“We have regained every job lost during the pandemic and added four million” new jobs, Ms. Cancela said.
Inflation has declined for 11 straight months, “and it’s no accident,” she said. “And thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, there are more than 35,000 new projects coming to life across the country. I bet some of you are seeing them right in your own districts. It’s immensely exciting when some of these big signs pop up with roadway signs that say, ‘Brought to you by President Joe Biden.’ It just means that there are jobs and new industries coming.”
Meanwhile, Cancela said, The CHIPS & Science Act “has revitalized manufacturing. It’s strengthening American supply chains and creating good-paying American jobs” with nearly $150 billion—“that’s billion with a b”—in investments in American semiconductor manufacturing.
The IRA is also kicking in, she said, calling it “the biggest investment in climate action in modern history” that “will spur investments in our clean energy economy and make sure that we’re creating good paying jobs.”
The IRA offers other benefits as well, Ms. Cancela said, noting under the measure, “15 million people will save an average of $800 a year on their insurance premiums. It will halve insulin costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $35, and it will finally, finally, allow Medicare to negotiate.”
Democratic state lawmakers said while all these things are wonderful, no one seems to be noticing with the president getting little credit, the term ‘Bidenomics’ mocked, and many not seeing its benefits in terms of rising wages and more accessible home ownership.
Ms. Cancela turned it back on them.
“I wish I had a good answer. I will instead say I have a solution and that is to keep talking about our successes, about how our work being done at the federal level has affected new investments in your communities,” she said. “It happens in thoughtful economic policy that started at the highest levels of this administration. And so, the more we can talk about how our work has benefited families, how our work has benefited communities.”
Republicans: Bidenomics A Boondoggle
‘Republicans, as they filed out of their breakfast with Mr. Pence, said there is a good reason why Bidenomics is lampooned and draws snorts, such as the one Utah Rep. Steve Eliason (R) issued when told of the president’s economic successes.Noting the former Vice President’s reference to the CBO’s 20-year projection that the nation’s debt is spiraling higher with each passing moment without an end in sight, he said Congress—unlike state legislatures—since 2020, has been on a spending tear and, eventually, the bill will come due.
Since the Biden administration came to power, he said, state legislators nationwide have watched the federal government act like a “teenager who just qualified for a credit card and went to a casino or a Best Buy and maxed it out and then says, ‘That’s not a problem.’”
For state lawmakers, taxpayers, and the nation’s future, Mr. Eliason said, “It’s terrifying. Think we have inflation now, what will it be like then?”
The federal largesse has boosted state revenues, with most touting budget surpluses. The Biden administration has encouraged states to invest those revenues into social programs and other government initiatives.
Montana Rep. Nelly Nicol (R) said her GOP-controlled legislature gave its federal “sugar high” surplus back to taxpayers in the form of $2,500 state income tax rebates to joint filers and $1,200 for individuals.
If the state kept it and invested in programming, “you end up growing the government,” not the economy, she said.
“It’s good to give it back to people, let them stimulate the economy,” Montana Rep. Greg Oblander (R-Billings) said.
Tax Foundation Vice President of State Projects Jared Walczak, among exhibitors at the summit, said the IRA has induced “a significant take-up of government energy credits that will create taxable activity, but it doesn’t mean it’s a prudent” long-term economic plan.
The IRA “does not reduce inflation” despite being the name of the bill because “it involves significant new expenditures” by the federal government, he said.
The initiative has its benefits, but Mr. Walczak doubts it will achieve what President Biden claims it will.
“It can grow targeted economic sectors,” he said, “but not the overall economy.”
