Mostly accurate but a little too harsh. Biden was dealt a tough hand. It could certainly have been played better, hence the accuracy, but it was legitimately difficult and he had some real accomplishments along with his mistakes, not least the fact that the U.S. economy has performed the best in the world during his time in office.
Mostly accurate but a little too harsh. Biden was dealt a tough hand. It could certainly have been played better, hence the accuracy, but it was legitimately difficult and he had some real accomplishments along with his mistakes, not least the fact that the U.S. economy has performed the best in the world during his time in office.
Carter's era was defined by stagflation: both high inflation and high employment.
To the extent that Biden's policies contributed to inflation (and in fairness, they did), they also successfully kept unemployment low, which was the goal. And at the same time, the fact that inflation rose everywhere makes it clear that the main drivers of inflation were outside of Biden's control.
Biden can accurately be blamed for not pivoting earlier to control inflation and even more so for not communicating more effectively about the fact that he inherited a disastrous economy and that the inflation we experienced were the growing pains of emerging from that disaster.
A better communicator, which is part of the job of being President, would have gotten more credit for the fact that American economy has done far better over the last four years than the rest of the world. But the fact that he was so ineffective as a communicator doesn't negate that record.
I don't see any evidence that Biden's policies played a role in reducing unemployment, which had spiked with Covid but were already on its way down before Biden took office. It had gone as high as 15 percent, but was back to around 7 when Trump left and would continue to decline. Inflation was not the result of "growing pains" but of Biden's excessive spending in the American Rescue Plan, which he'd been warned against by Democratic economists Larry Summers and Jason Furman. America's economy is generally better than the rest of the world, and Biden wasn't an exception, but neither was he the cause.
Meanwhile, disaster in Afghanistan, gas prices going from $2.17 a gallon in 2020 to $4.90 a gallon by 2022 and a President who didn't seem up to the job... all we were missing in the end was the cardigan.
There was no guarantee that unemployment was going to continue to decline. Not only is an external shock like the one COVID dealt to the economy more than enough to push an economy into recession, but in 2021 we were actually at the high point of COVID deaths because of the Delta wave. There was a huge danger of the economy not rebounding to full employment, which was the reason for the aggressive stimulus plan. After the previous Republican recession in 2007, the Obama administration settled for an insufficient stimulus plan in 2009, which was the key reason economy didn't recover as fast as otherwise it might have.
Given that history, it wasn't the least bit unreasonable for the Biden administration to believe that there was less danger in too much stimulus than not enough. And given the fact that Europe, which stimulated less, experienced BOTH higher unemployment and higher inflation suggests it may have even been the right decision.
That said, it certainly did contribute to the high inflation. And the fact that Biden didn't message this as effectively as he could have (he should have been talking every day about the Trump depression he inherited) and was too slow to take other steps that could have addressed inflation or reduced some of its impact on the working class indeed led to his defeat.
It's hard to say precisely what the causation and correlation is though. The US did better than the EU. Was it because of US public policy? There were many variables at play, and I don't think it's safe to conclude that the outcome in the US was necessarily because of our public policy. US population growth, greater consumer spending, etc. are all factors as well. Fiscal policy played a role in both regions ("similar fiscal impulses" from 2020-2023), but somehow the US still comes out ahead, telling me that there's something else about the U.S. that makes a difference. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/focus/2024/html/ecb.ebbox202404_01~3ceb83e0e4.en.html
Agreed that there is far more to the economy than public policy, and it's hard/impossible to tease out how much each factor played. I don't pretend to have the answer.
My real point is that to the extent that you're going to blame Biden for what went wrong with the economy during his time in office (and I agree that his policies did have some effect), you should also credit him for what went right to a similar extent.
Mostly accurate but a little too harsh. Biden was dealt a tough hand. It could certainly have been played better, hence the accuracy, but it was legitimately difficult and he had some real accomplishments along with his mistakes, not least the fact that the U.S. economy has performed the best in the world during his time in office.
All people will recall us how workers lost purchasing power due to inflation. Carter 2.0.
Carter's era was defined by stagflation: both high inflation and high employment.
To the extent that Biden's policies contributed to inflation (and in fairness, they did), they also successfully kept unemployment low, which was the goal. And at the same time, the fact that inflation rose everywhere makes it clear that the main drivers of inflation were outside of Biden's control.
Biden can accurately be blamed for not pivoting earlier to control inflation and even more so for not communicating more effectively about the fact that he inherited a disastrous economy and that the inflation we experienced were the growing pains of emerging from that disaster.
A better communicator, which is part of the job of being President, would have gotten more credit for the fact that American economy has done far better over the last four years than the rest of the world. But the fact that he was so ineffective as a communicator doesn't negate that record.
I don't see any evidence that Biden's policies played a role in reducing unemployment, which had spiked with Covid but were already on its way down before Biden took office. It had gone as high as 15 percent, but was back to around 7 when Trump left and would continue to decline. Inflation was not the result of "growing pains" but of Biden's excessive spending in the American Rescue Plan, which he'd been warned against by Democratic economists Larry Summers and Jason Furman. America's economy is generally better than the rest of the world, and Biden wasn't an exception, but neither was he the cause.
Meanwhile, disaster in Afghanistan, gas prices going from $2.17 a gallon in 2020 to $4.90 a gallon by 2022 and a President who didn't seem up to the job... all we were missing in the end was the cardigan.
There was no guarantee that unemployment was going to continue to decline. Not only is an external shock like the one COVID dealt to the economy more than enough to push an economy into recession, but in 2021 we were actually at the high point of COVID deaths because of the Delta wave. There was a huge danger of the economy not rebounding to full employment, which was the reason for the aggressive stimulus plan. After the previous Republican recession in 2007, the Obama administration settled for an insufficient stimulus plan in 2009, which was the key reason economy didn't recover as fast as otherwise it might have.
Given that history, it wasn't the least bit unreasonable for the Biden administration to believe that there was less danger in too much stimulus than not enough. And given the fact that Europe, which stimulated less, experienced BOTH higher unemployment and higher inflation suggests it may have even been the right decision.
That said, it certainly did contribute to the high inflation. And the fact that Biden didn't message this as effectively as he could have (he should have been talking every day about the Trump depression he inherited) and was too slow to take other steps that could have addressed inflation or reduced some of its impact on the working class indeed led to his defeat.
But that doesn't change the fact that the American economy is the envy of the world (https://www.economist.com/special-report/2024-10-19), and he played a role in that.
It's hard to say precisely what the causation and correlation is though. The US did better than the EU. Was it because of US public policy? There were many variables at play, and I don't think it's safe to conclude that the outcome in the US was necessarily because of our public policy. US population growth, greater consumer spending, etc. are all factors as well. Fiscal policy played a role in both regions ("similar fiscal impulses" from 2020-2023), but somehow the US still comes out ahead, telling me that there's something else about the U.S. that makes a difference. https://www.ecb.europa.eu/press/economic-bulletin/focus/2024/html/ecb.ebbox202404_01~3ceb83e0e4.en.html
Agreed that there is far more to the economy than public policy, and it's hard/impossible to tease out how much each factor played. I don't pretend to have the answer.
My real point is that to the extent that you're going to blame Biden for what went wrong with the economy during his time in office (and I agree that his policies did have some effect), you should also credit him for what went right to a similar extent.