President Biden on Wednesday bashed the theory of trickle-down economics, while promoting what the White House has deemed “Bidenomics.”
“Here’s the simple truth about trickle-down economics, it didn’t represent the best of American capitalism, let alone America,” Biden said in remarks in Chicago. “It represented a moment where we walked away … from how this country was built, how this city was built. Bidenomics is about the future.
“Bidenomics is just another way of saying, restore the American dream. Because it worked before,” he continued, arguing that 40 years of trickle-down economics has limited the American dream.
Biden has said throughout his presidency that he is tired of trickle-down economics, which was part of former President Reagan’s Reaganomics.
“That’s been the Republican plan so far — good for big business, bad for everybody else. It’s not even that good for big business anymore,” the president said.
The White House has gone all in on Bidenomics this week, which is the term his campaign is using for his economic agenda and the idea of building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up.
The president said Wednesday that trickle-down economics “failed” Americans and that “this is the moment” the U.S. will move away from that economic theory.
“Under the trickle-down economic theory was that public investment would discourage private investment. Give me a break,” he said.
“We went to see a whole lot of major corporations said, ‘are you more or less likely to invest if the government investments?’ Overwhelming, they had it backward,” he added. “They said no, ‘we’re more likely to invest if the government invests.’ Public investment declined here at home, industries that we invented started to move overseas like semiconductors.”
He also claimed that industries in the U.S. became more concentrated through trickle-down policies.
Biden said that three-quarters of U.S. industries grew more concentrated under trickle-down economics. “They were moving to diminish competition.”
“Under the trickle-down economic theory, three-quarters of U.S. industries grew more” concentrated, he said. “They were moving to diminish competition.”
The president touted parts of his economic plan, like infrastructure investments, empowering workers through promoting unions, cracking down on non-compete clauses, and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
He also mentioned what he hasn’t been able to do and vowed to keep trying.
“I’m determined to keep fighting for universal pre-K and free community college,” the president said.
Biden earlier Wednesday appeared to distance himself from the term Bidenomics, even though officials and aides have been pushing out the term all week through memos and comments during press briefings.
He told reporters while leaving for Chicago that an op-ed he authored in The Wall Street Journal represented a soft launch of Bidenomics, but also claimed that the press “branded it.”
“Everyone from Wall Street Journal and Financial Times began to call it Bidenomics. I didn’t come up with the name, I really didn’t,” Biden said in his remarks. “I now claim it but they’re the ones who used it first. I got asked by a press person this morning … I said I didn’t name it Bidenomics, I didn’t realize the economists in the Wall Street Journal did. But I think it’s a plan I’m happy to call Bidenomics.”
The stage in Chicago was covered in Bidenomics posters that surrounded the president during his remarks.
Amid the push this week, new polling showed that 34 percent of U.S. adults said they approve of the president’s handling of the economy. Meanwhile, seven in 10 adults polled said they think economic conditions in the U.S. are poor, which is a slight decrease from the 75 percent who said that last month.