President Joe Biden has made it clear: He’s running for reelection on his economic record.
This means he’ll have to lie through his teeth, hoping voters ignore what they see in their own wallets.
If he’s honest, he’ll lose in a landslide.
Biden began hyping his economic “progress” in Chicago last month and has kept the drumbeat going ever since.
“Inflation . . . is now down to 3%,” he tweeted just last week.
That’s true — but it soared to a record-high 9% last year and took 26 long months to come back down to its current level. (So much for the mild, “transitory” price hikes Biden promised.)
It’s also still double the rate when he took office.
And the credit for bringing it down belongs entirely to the Federal Reserve, which pushed interest rates higher at an unprecedented rate.
Biden, by contrast, is still pushing inflation up, by goosing federal spending wherever possible: His latest is a push to forgive $39 billion in student loans.
Meanwhile, the Fed’s harsh medicine comes at a hefty price: Soaring interest rates have taken a steep toll on economic growth (a measly 1.3% for this year’s first quarter) and pose serious risks down the road.
Ironically, the prez talks endlessly about building the economy “from the middle out and the bottom up.”
Yet it is precisely those people who’ve been hurt most: With wages rising slower than prices, the average American family, in effect, has lost $10,000 under Biden.
Homeownership is harder too, with mortgage rates having more than doubled and home prices up 22%.
And though he keeps talking about the “record” 13 million jobs he “created,” those were just recovered post-COVID, not new jobs.
Meanwhile, higher interest rates and growing debt have set off a serious credit crunch, as economist Philip Pilkington notes.
Desmond Lachman, another economist, warns of looming worldwide economic chaos, possibly on the scale of the Great Depression, with global debt now at $300 trillion, or 350% of world GDP.
The fact is, the economy was red-hot when Biden took office, recovering swiftly after the Trump-developed COVID vaccine became available.
Biden and fellow Democrats in Congress then pumped trillions into the economy — despite warnings it would overheat and fuel inflation. Which is what it did, and the nation has paid the price.
If Republican candidates have any sense, they will campaign on Biden’s disastrous record more than on many other social issues.
Americans know who’s to blame: A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week showed Biden stuck at a weak 40% approval rating, with the economy as Americans’ top concern.
An AP/NORC survey last month found just 34% approve of his handling of the economy.
Hmm. Maybe he’s focusing on the economy not because he’s proud of his record — but because he knows it’s what he’s most vulnerable on.
