While Democrats on Capitol Hill wholeheartedly support President Biden’s major legislative achievements, not many of them have jumped on board a new White House effort to broadly label the President’s economic plans as “Bidenomics.”
“Bidenomics is about the future,” the President said last week in a speech aimed at transforming the word into a positive description for his agenda. “It’s rooted in what’s always worked best in this country: Investing in America.”
The main pieces of that agenda include the bipartisan infrastructure law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the CHIPS Act, which is designed to spur the domestic production of semiconductors.
Georgia Democrats in Congress might not be saying the word ‘Bidenomics,’ but they’re touting all of those Biden policies as winning arguments, highlighting investments in roads, bridges, ports, and more.
“I will continue working to deliver strong federal investments like this to every corner of our state,” U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock said after recently announcing money for electric buses at Georgia State University.
“Over and over again, we see how much the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law invests in people,” said U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Atlanta.
On the flip side, Republicans have been using ‘Bidenomics’ much like they used ‘Obamacare’ — as a sneering attack on anything backed by this White House.
“I’m so happy they named it Bidenomics,” said U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Rome.
Even before the White House push, U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Pooler had been using ‘Bidenomics’ to describe the President’s policies — and definitely not in a favorable way, as Republicans hammered Democrats about inflation and consumer price increases.
“We are suffering the consequences of the Biden administration and the Democrats’ policies,” Carter said.
This will be an ongoing tussle in the 2024 campaign. Democrats will be more than happy to tout Biden’s big achievements — as we have seen in Georgia in recent months — and Republicans will be more than happy to denigrate those same measures.
How it turns out in 2024 may depend on what happens with the U.S. economy over the next 15 months, as both sides watch the data on jobs, inflation, wages, and overall growth.
Some experts had forecast a recession this year, but so far there have been a number of encouraging signs of growth in various sectors of the economy — even with the highest interest rates since 2007.
While Democrats retreated from attacks on ‘Obamacare’ in 2010, the Biden White House has decided to go on the offensive this time.
We’ll see whether ‘Bidenomics’ turns out to be a winning political embrace for Democrats — or a four-letter word.
Jamie Dupree has covered national politics and Congress from Washington, D.C. since the Reagan administration. His column appears weekly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For more, check out his Capitol Hill newsletter at http://jamiedupree.substack.com
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