American Voters' Economic Discontent Shadows Biden Successor

"President Biden wanted to be a transformative president who expanded the state's role in American life as Lyndon B. Johnson had. To a striking extent, he succeeded, pushing through milestone legislation on infrastructure, semiconductor manufacturing and green energy.

But when the public thinks of Biden's economic record, they focus on something else: Inflation, which in 2022 hit a 40-year high before receding. Inflation endangered Biden's re-election even before concerns about his age emerged. Those concerns led him to announce Sunday he wouldn't seek re-election, and to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee for president.

The question now is whether Harris, or any other Democrat, will be similarly burdened by public unhappiness about the economy -- or instead can pivot to focusing on the future, where the candidate stands a better chance against Republican nominee Donald Trump.

The Democratic nominee will have to contend with Biden's economic record. The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan that Biden signed shortly after he took office embodied both his ambition and overreach. Biden and his staff saw it as a vehicle for progressive goals such as a vastly expanded child tax credit. It was to be followed by "Build Back Better," which would shower billions more on green energy, universal prekindergarten, expanded healthcare subsidies, paid leave, child care, eldercare and public housing. And because the economy was in crisis, they reasoned, the more they spent, the better.

But the premise was wrong. The economy wasn't in crisis. It had been growing rapidly since mid-2020 thanks to stimulus passed under Trump, an end to social distancing, and vaccines. It wasn't being held back by inadequate demand, but inadequate supply, as the pandemic snarled logistics chains and drove millions from the labor force. The collision of new demand with constricted supply sent inflation soaring.

Build Back Better eventually foundered on opposition from moderate Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia. In retrospect, he may have done Biden a favor. His opposition headed off another potentially inflationary surge of spending. Meanwhile, smaller pieces of Biden's agenda passed separately as the Infrastructure and Investment Act, the Chips and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the first two with Republican votes.

Their ultimate legacy remains to be seen. The Chips act is bringing to the U.S. the capacity to make advanced semiconductors that now exists exclusively in Asia. The Inflation Reduction Act has encouraged investment in solar energy, electric vehicles and batteries.

The legislation represents a major shift by the U.S. into industrial policy -- the use of state instruments to allocate capital to favored sectors. The shift seems likely to endure even if Trump, who shares Biden's skepticism of free trade and fondness for domestic manufacturing, returns to the White House next year.

Yet while all three laws were broadly popular, they have barely registered in the public's consciousness. Instead, poll after poll found abysmal approval of Biden's handling of the economy, a disconnect that frustrated Biden officials and perplexed outside observers. After all, in terms of growth in economic output and jobs, or the decline in unemployment, his record thus far ranks among the best of any presidential term since 1980.

Even inflation, while still higher than the 2% that prevailed before the pandemic, is now down to about 3%, and getting close enough to 2% that the Federal Reserve should soon lower interest rates.

That is overshadowed by the cumulative 20% increase in prices since Biden took office, the unaffordability of homes and the failure of wages to keep up with prices. Those factors contribute to a pervasive sense of instability fueled by changes to life and work brought on by the pandemic, high levels of unauthorized immigration, conflict in Ukraine and Gaza and intensifying polarization.

Historians will get to decide Biden's true economic legacy. For now, the more pressing question is whether public antipathy similarly drags down whoever takes his place as the Democratic nominee for president.

Harris will find it almost impossible to distance herself from Biden's record. In a similar way, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, who became the Democratic nominee in 1968 after Johnson declined to run, struggled to distance himself from the deeply unpopular Vietnam War, and went on to lose narrowly to Richard Nixon.

An outsider such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would carry less baggage than Harris but still bear the brunt of anti-incumbent ire. In 2008, Republican John McCain was close to Democrat Barack Obama in the polls until mid-September, when Lehman Brothers failed. McCain was running to succeed another Republican, George W. Bush, and voters blamed the ensuing crisis on the party that then held the White House.

Still, while any Democratic nominee has to shoulder Biden's record, he or she might at least do better defending it, and taking the attack to Trump, than Biden did in his disastrous June debate.

While the public remembers Trump's economy fondly, he has vulnerabilities.

His running mate, JD Vance, may sound populist pro-worker notes, but Trump's own rhetoric still emphasizes tax cuts and tariffs, neither of which are particularly popular. Economists believe his plan to raise tariffs, deport unauthorized immigrants and cut taxes will raise inflation, interest rates and deficits.

No one knows if they are right. But the more the Democratic nominee can talk about the future under Trump rather than the past under Biden, the better his or her chances will be." [1]

Asians will not produce the most advanced computer chips in America. There are no people in America who could work in those factories. The same situation is in infrastructure and green manufacturing. Democrats just used taxes of Americans to bribe companies who can do nothing good and trade unions who are hungry for cash and power. The train of the American economy is heading into a spectacular crash. Kamala Harris is right showing that she is a stupid smiling prosecutor who understands nothing.

1. U.S. News -- Analysis: Voters' Economic Discontent Shadows Biden Successor. Ip, Greg.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 23 July 2024: A.3.