Let’s separate the facts from the fiction on Bidenomics and the current state of the U.S. economy.
President Joe Biden likes to trumpet the positive impact that Bidenomics has had on the U.S. economy. But is this even remotely true?
What is Bidenomics?
Bidenomics is an economic philosophy focused on making positive public investments in the U.S., supporting workers to develop the middle class, and fostering competition to reduce costs and assist small businesses to prosper — all in an attempt to grow the U.S. economy, as Biden expressed, “from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down.”
What Biden calls Bidenomics utilizes a bastardized form of Keynesianism void of constraints to support deficit spending to achieve his desired goals.
In practice, Bidenomics has been an absolute failure.
Biden likes to look to the stock market to prove the success of Bidenomics. The stock market is only one of many indicators of economic health. During Biden’s tenure in office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have all risen, but these indexes were rising prior to his inauguration on January 20, 2021.
I attribute the improvement in these three indexes over the years of the Biden presidency primarily to the U.S. economy continuing to reopen after the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of artificial intelligence, and more recently, investors hoping for interest rate reductions from the Federal Reserve. These factors had nothing to do with Biden, his policies or Bidenomics.
What did Biden do during this period of rising markets? He spent like a drunken sailor in a wasteful manner.
What is known as the “Inflation Reduction Act,” but should more accurately be renamed the “Inflation Enhancement Act,” is a perfect example of Biden’s excessive and wasteful spending. This bill, by all accounts, calls for the spending of hundreds of billions of dollars, and some evaluators estimate over $1 trillion, to support the climate change hoax. To date, it has done little to nothing to improve the lives of average Americans.
This and other similar wasteful spending bills by Biden have pumped trillions of dollars into the U.S. economy. This spending has given the U.S. economy a misleading, largely stock market-based, short-term sugar high planned to bolster Biden’s reelection bid. Unfortunately, this spending has resulted in little, if any, long-term benefit. The primary result of all of this spending has been high levels of inflation. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) was at 1.4% when Biden took office. During Biden’s term in office, the CPI has risen to as high as 9.1%. The aggregate impact of inflation in the U.S. since Biden’s inauguration as measured by the CPI is about 20%. This is the result of Bidenomics and can hardly be considered a positive achievement.
High inflation has forced many Americans to borrow to make ends meet. Credit card borrowing is often an early sign of distress in the economy. The total credit card balance for Americans has gone from $770 billion in the first quarter of 2021, when Biden entered office, to $1.13 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2023, which is the highest balance since the New York Fed began collecting such data in 1999. To make matters worse, during this same period, credit card delinquency rates have risen. This credit card distress is the result of Bidenomics.
Biden likes to tout the creation of jobs under his watch as attributable to Bidenomics. A dive into the composition of these jobs sheds light on Biden’s boast. Due to the fact that the United States was past the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic prior to Biden taking office, jobs were already coming back. Many of the jobs that Biden takes credit for creating were people simply coming back to work as the country came out of the COVID-19 pandemic under the policies of the Trump administration.
Biden has often taken pride in the employment numbers reported over the last several years, but these figures are misleading. Many of the jobs reported are part-time. While the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics in its monthly news release, The Employment Situation – April 2024, does not specify the number of illegal aliens employed, it acknowledges that it is “likely” that such individuals are included in their reported employment figures, which show that a large number of jobs are filled by foreign born individuals.
Based on the Bureau’s representations and data as well as other corroborating sources, it is reasonable to conclude that the number of illegal aliens included in the Bureau’s statistics is significant and purposely not reported because it does not support many of the Biden administrations public positions, including with respect to the U.S. border with Mexico and illegal immigration.
In addition, in certain months, in excess of 50% of the Bureau’s reported jobs are government positions or indirectly supported by the government such as in health care and social assistance.
A healthy economy is built on the private sector and not the government. Government jobs are paid for with taxes and deficit spending. While these government supported jobs can create the short-term illusion of a healthy job market, the U.S. cannot go on indefinitely in this manner and hope to have a strong economy. Biden and his left-leaning acolytes believe government is the answer, while history has shown us that true economic health comes from a strong private sector. This is basically the historic argument between Marxism and capitalism.
Going back to the tenets of Bidenomics that I cited above, I believe that Biden has not satisfied his own standards. Biden has invested poorly in the climate change hoax and otherwise, the middle class has been hammered by his inflation, and his inflation has increased costs for all businesses, especially small businesses, making them less productive and in many cases threatening their existence.
By all accounts Bidenomics has been a total failure and become an anchor on the necks of American businesses, U.S. citizens and the country as a whole.
Please remember the failure of Bidenomics when you vote in November and consider that a vote for Biden or any other left-leaning candidate is a vote for Marxism for America and continued failure.
In summation, we must consider the facts and not be fooled by the fiction.
And that’s my take.
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Perry V. Kalajian is an attorney, consultant, and analyst with extensive experience in the areas of banking, finance, and restructuring. He possesses multiple degrees in each of the areas of business and law. Mr. Kalajian has had numerous appearances on Newsmax TV.
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