Setting The Record Straight On Bidenomics

Biden's economy smashes Trump's, and it's not even close.

by Bob Cesca

WASHINGTON, DC – One of the issues that could hurt President Biden in this election is the public’s misapprehensions about the success of the economy, and I intend to disabuse those voters of their innocent or intentional wrongness here, so apologies in advance for a particularly wonky article this week.

A recent poll indicated that majorities believe America is in a recession (it’s not) and that unemployment is high (also not). Even if we correct for polling errors by subtracting, say, 10 points from those numbers, it still represents a staggering number of people who believe the economy is exactly the opposite of what it is.

One explanation for the wrongness is the undeniable existence of higher consumer prices: gas, groceries, and housing in particular. Higher prices are leading some people – not all – to falsely believe that we’re in a recession and joblessness is high, and so they’re doing what many of us have done when facing strains on our checking accounts: we reflexively blame the party in power. This misappropriated blame is leading some Democrats and possibly the Biden campaign to slow-walk the success of the president’s economic record for fear of alienating the voters who’ve been left behind during what is otherwise a boom time.

How do I define an economic boom? The same way we always have: by looking at the leading indicators of a robust economy: unemployment, the GDP, and, to a lesser extent, the stock market. To that point, let’s do the aforementioned wonky numbers. President Biden has presided over:

• 15 million jobs created.

• 26 consecutive months of sub-4% unemployment. Lowest since the 1960s.

• 3.4% economic growth (GDP). The most robust economic recovery in the world.

• All time high records on the Dow, the NASDAQ, and the S&P.

• A manufacturing boom. 

• Recording investment in new factory construction. America is building things again!

• More domestic oil production than any nation in history.

The only indicator that’s dragging down the Biden record is the aforementioned “inflation.” And even that metric has been reduced from a high point of around nine percent in 2022 to around three percent today. Interest rates have also increased in order to facilitate the successful decrease in the inflation rate. (More wonk: Higher interest rates make credit spending more costly, decreasing demand, thus decreasing consumer prices.) That said, as soon as inflation reaches around two percent, the Federal Reserve will begin to cut interest rates.

However, it’s obvious now that it’s not just inflation that’s driving prices. Yes, inflation is in the mix, but it’s relatively minor compared with the real culprit: price gouging.

Let’s start with the price of gas. Remember those stickers at the pump with Biden saying “I did that.” Guess what? He didn’t do that. The oil and gas sector is gouging you. OPEC is cutting oil quotas to keep prices high. The former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources, which was just acquired by Exxon Mobil, has been accused by the Federal Trade Commission of colluding with OPEC and OPEC+ nations to keep gas prices high. Donald Trump himself, in 2020, cut a deal with his cronies in Russia and Saudi Arabia to cut oil production. Speaking of Russia, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine also impacted the oil and gas sector as well.

Meantime, grocery and fast food corporations have been raising prices far beyond the rate of inflation. McDonald’s, for example, has raised the prices of its (alleged) food by as much as 199 percent over the last 10 years – that’s 196 points higher than inflation. According to a new report, “[grocery chain] profits are still way above their accustomed levels, hitting an all-time high of $2.8 trillion in the fourth quarter, according to Commerce Department data released Thursday.”

Retailers overall raked in $3.8 trillion in profits during the fourth quarter of 2023 alone.

Wall Street calls this “margin expansion.” We call it price gouging. 

The Hill reported:

“Some firms seem to have used rising costs as an opportunity to further hike prices to increase their profits, and profits remain elevated even as supply chain pressures have eased. Larger retailers and wholesalers with considerable leverage over their suppliers were able to take more aggressive action to protect themselves,” FTC researchers concluded.

In other words, retail corporations cynically decided to jack up prices to obscene levels, knowing that consumers would (inaccurately) blame inflation and therefore the Democrats and the Biden administration, instead of blaming the greedy corporations.

---

Support The Banter by becoming a member. Get 50% off today:

---

What are the Democrats doing about all this? In 2022, Katie Porter introduced the Consumer Fuel Price Gouging Prevention Act, which passed the House without a single Republican vote, but failed to make it to a vote in the Senate before the end of that year. This year, however, Elizabeth Warren introduced the Price Gouging Prevention Act of 2024, which is certain to be filibustered by the Republicans. Likewise, the president’s Department of the Interior is cracking down on oil and gas companies passing along oil rig decommissioning costs to consumers.

President Biden is also proposing $10,000 tax rebates for first time home buyers to ease the cost of housing. The president has forgiven $167 billion in student debt for 4.75 million Americans. And this week, the administration is in the process of removing medical debt from credit reports.

How does all of this compare to the Trump Republican economic record, which polls say is allegedly better than the Biden record? Trump presided over:

• A massive recession and the single largest one-month drop in GDP ever.

• Even before COVID, Trump’s GDP was 2.8%, nearly a point lower than Biden’s.

• A net loss of 3 million jobs, the worst record since Hoover.

• A pre-COVID manufacturing recession circa 2019. Trump is the guy who allegedly builds things?

• And, yes, there was inflation during Trump’s four years. In 2019, the rate was only 1 point lower than it is today.

• It’s worth noting that we lost 400,000 Americans due to Trump’s incompetent response to the pandemic. Had he been prepared and done the right thing, rather than deliberately ignoring it as he said to Bob Woodward, we could’ve avoided all the worst ramifications of that calamity, including the recession.

By the way, Trump can’t run a social media app without massive losses. Why the hell does anyone expect him to be an effective steward of the economy?

About inflation and prices, not only has Trump’s party blocked all efforts to rein in price gougers, but Trump also intends to give permanent tax cuts to the gouging corporations and the billionaires who run them, while also cutting regulations, allowing the gouging to continue. And by way of history, every single Republican president for the last 100 years has presided over a recession. There’s a decent shot the instability of a second Trump presidency, along with rolling back the Biden economic policies, will manifest another one. 

By nearly every metric, the Biden record is significantly better than the Trump record, and yet the Democrats are too timid to brag about it for fear of seeming unsympathetic to the folks left behind, while Trump can’t stop bragging that his was the greatest economy in history (it wasn’t). And we wonder why poll respondents are so wrong about all of this. 

There’s a political messaging lesson in this disparity.

The Democrats have to start proudly and relentlessly bragging about the Biden economic record, while getting the word out about obvious price gouging and making sure to emphasize that in a second term more Americans will feel the benefit of these policies. Stop pulling your punches, Democrats, and play to win. Democracy is on the line. This is no time for wimpy politics. 

There are too many Americans who are selfishly willing to end American democracy, worsen the climate crisis, and guarantee a hard-right Supreme Court for decades that will further erode gun control laws, voting rights, reproductive rights, and more, all due to misplaced blame for the price of gas and bacon, along with a completely stupid view that Trump will somehow fix it. He won’t. The numbers don’t lie. History doesn’t lie. It’s backbone time, Democrats.

Editor’s note: Thom Hartmann emailed us in response to this article with the observation that under Ronald Reagan, inflation never went below 4.1%. Today, the inflation rate is 3.4%.

Enjoy this article? Please consider supporting The Banter by becoming a member. You’ll get access to Members Only articles, our locked archive, The Emergency Meeting Podcast, and Member chat threads. You’ll also be supporting truly independent media. Thank you!