President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he will bequeath newly elected President Donald Trump what he described as “the strongest economy in modern history” and “the envy of the world,” as he warned that efforts by the next administration to reverse his economic policies twists would result in major damage to Americans' wallets.
Speaking to the Brookings Institution think tank at what was billed as a major speech on the economic legacy he leaves behind after just one four-year term, Biden talked about how he came to power with a “fundamentally different theory” than the “trickle-down” views that have dominated economic policy since the rise of Ronald Reagan and modern conservatism in the 1980s.
Using a playbook in which he wants to grow the U.S. economy “from the middle and from the bottom up, not from the top down,” Biden explained how he had urged Congress to pass the American Rescue shortly after taking office Plan Act, along with the bipartisan infrastructure bill he signed, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act clean energy and climate spending package that capped his first two years in the White House.
Those record investments, he said, have resulted in record numbers of applications to start new small businesses, record low unemployment and a “soft landing” for the economy, in which inflation has retreated to pre-pandemic levels at or below two percent.
“In four short years we have come a long way… from the crisis we inherited. Not only did we beat the pandemic, we broke with the economic orthodoxy that I believe has long failed this country, a theory that has led to fewer jobs, less economic growth and bigger deficits,” Biden said.
“My theory was that the strongest economy is built from the bottom up, and from the middle… the best way to build in America was to invest in America. Invest in American products, invest in American people, not by handing out tax breaks to those at the top.”
Biden added that he believes it is “long past time for America to invest for generations in our infrastructure and our manufacturing base, the technological edge in our clean energy future,” although he acknowledged that many Americans have struggled to seeing the value placed on what he did because of their own economic difficulties
“But I believe it was the right thing to do, not just to get America out of the economic crisis caused by a pandemic, but to put America on a stronger course for the future. And we did that,” he said.
But at the same time, the 46th president warned the 47th, who ran for and won the presidency for a second non-consecutive term — the first to do so in more than a century — by promising to impose high tariffs that most economists saying this would reignite inflation and cripple the economy Biden is leaving behind.
“By all accounts, the new government is determined to give the land back so it can trickle down to the economy and provide a new tax cut for the very rich that will not be paid for, or which, if paid for, will have real costs will bring,” Biden said. who warned that such a course would result in “massive deficits or significant cuts to basic health care, education and veterans benefits programs.”
Trump, he continued, “seems determined to impose steep, universal tariffs on all imported goods brought into this country, based on the mistaken belief that foreign countries will bear the costs of those tariffs, and not the American consumer .'
“I believe this approach is a big mistake,” he said.
Quoting the late Republican President Ronald Reagan (who in turn quoted founding father and second President John Adams), Biden said he agreed with Reagan's statement that “facts are stubborn things” and that he had “a set of standards ” offered to measure Trump's actions against those of the past four years.
He asked, “During my presidency, we have created 60 million new jobs in America. Will the next president create jobs? Or like Herbert Hoover being the only president to lose jobs in his administration? During my presidency, we are seeing the lowest average government unemployment rate in fifty years. Will unemployment be higher or lower in the next four years?”
On inflation, Biden noted how his administration had brought down inflation despite “global impacts from the pandemic, Putin's war in Ukraine and supply chain disruptions,” leaving it almost two percent to Trump.
“Where will inflation be at the end of the next president's term? These are simple, well-established economic measures used to measure the strength of any economy, the success or failure of a president's four years in office. These are not political, rhetorical opinions. They are just facts, simple facts, as President Reagan called them, hard facts,” he said.
As he concluded his remarks, Biden said he hoped it would be difficult for Trump to undo many of the infrastructure and economic investments his administration has made, because much of it is intended to benefit places with strong support for Trump's Republican Party.
“I knew people would be angry, but the reason the Red States needed more was because of the decisions they made … and the geography,” he said.
He asked: “Will the next president shut down a new electric battery factory in Liberty, North Carolina, that will create thousands of jobs? Will he shut down a new solar factory being built in Carterville, Georgia? Are they going to do that? Will he deny seniors in red states $35 a month of insulin?
“I believe the only way presidents can lead America is to lead all of America. And I believe that the economy that I'm leaving right now – and others could do better than me, I'm not saying it was perfect – is the best economy, the strongest economy in the world, and things are going to get better for all Americans . he said.
