WASHINGTON — Bidenomics “is the word of the day, word of the week, word of the month, word of the year here at the White House,” said principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton at the Tuesday briefing, the day before President Joe Biden delivers in Chicago a major address about — Bidenomics.
Biden’s Air Force One lands at O’Hare Airport midmorning; from there he helicopters to the parking area near Soldier Field. His motorcade heads to the Old Post Office, 433 W. Van Buren St., where at noon the president, seeking a second term, delivers his Bidenomics speech to show the positive effects of his economic agenda.
After that, he fundraises in the Loop with Gov. J.B. Pritzker before heading back to Washington in the late afternoon.
Some things for you to know…
Who invented the term Bidenomics?
A few weeks ago, I’m told by a White House source, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, not especially Biden-friendly outlets when it comes to his economic policies, started using Bidenomics, not intending it to be a compliment.
But the Biden team understood the branding power of the word and decided to own it and not let it become a pejorative.
Perhaps they learned a lesson from the term “Obamacare.” Republicans coined it to show their contempt for President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance program — the Affordable Care Act signed in 2010.
Eventually, Obama’s advisers realized that they should not let the Republicans own and negatively define the term “Obamacare.”
In a messaging turnaround, Obamacare, once Obama started to use it with pride, became what it is today, the nickname widely used for the programs dealing with health insurance coverage, health care costs and preventive care.
Bidenomics is on its way to becoming a key slogan — a powerful shorthand — to tout Biden’s economic policies.
Just as Reaganomics found its way into dictionaries as a term to define President Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economic agenda, Biden’s embrace and boosting of the word Bidenomics is his simple way of promoting his vision, as the White House says, “for growing the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down.”
What exactly is Bidenomics?
It’s a group of policies and laws Biden signed intended as more than just COVID-19-era economic Band-Aids.
Before Republicans took control of the House this year, Biden signed into law four key measures that make up most of the Bidenomics package:
* The massive Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
* The American Rescue Plan, coming in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic
* The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, dealing with manufacturing, supply chains and research and development investments
* The Inflation Reduction Act, which gives Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices
What is Biden going to say in Chicago?
In a Monday memo written by top Biden White House advisers Anita Dunn and Mike Donilon, they said the Chicago speech will kick off how in the weeks ahead, Biden will take on his GOP critics by calling “out those who want to drag our country backward by returning to the failed trickle-down policies of the past.”
Why is Biden talking about those programs now?
As the saying goes, good government is good politics. And if Biden does not go on the offensive, Republicans will use inflation — which by the way is going down — and ignore other positive economic indicators — to argue that Biden does not deserve a second term.
Anything more specific about what Biden will say?
Lael Brainard, director of the National Economic Council, said at the Tuesday briefing that Biden “will outline the three key areas that are at the heart” of Bidenomics.
Those three pillars are:
- Investing more for things to be made in the U.S. — such as for semiconductors and clean energy, and doing it in a way that sparks private investment.
- Empowering and educating workers. Biden is almost certain to throw a spotlight on the post-pandemic low unemployment rate and higher wages and his support for unions and creating jobs that don’t require college degrees.
- Promoting competition. That takes in Biden’s new war on junk fees: a potentially potent populist issue that crosses party lines; getting rid of noncompete clauses; and in another populist move, highlighting how Biden’s executive order cleared the way for cheaper hearing aids — sold over the counter, without a prescription.
