The White House keeps trying to make ‘Bidenomics’ happen. Is it working in suburbs like JoCo?
The prices are ‘still a little high’ when Debbie Turner, a 70-year-old Leawood retiree, shops for groceries.
But as Turner considers the health of the economy, the Democrat likes what she sees: low unemployment and higher wages. She doesn’t think the country is headed toward a recession.
“We’ve heard of Bidenomics, that’s what they’re calling it,” Turner said, before rattling off President Joe Biden’s major legislative achievements, including the infrastructure bill and the Inflation Reduction Act.
“You do see it,” Turner said Monday before a state legislative town hall at a public library in Leawood. “There’s a lot of work going on, there’s work happening — infrastructure.”
The connection Turner has made between Biden and the economic vitality she sees locally is the kind of link the White House wants repeated in the minds of millions of voters across the country ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Turner, who worked in the insurance industry, lives in Johnson County, a previously solid Republican area that Democrats have turned into one of their few Kansas strongholds over the past decade. Biden won the county in 2020, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to do so in more than a century.
While Kansas and Missouri will likely support the Republican presidential nominee in 2024, Johnson County is illustrative of the type of suburban area that Biden’s campaign believes is crucial for his reelection chances— and the chances of the eventual GOP candidate.
The county is also important for Democratic efforts to win the U.S. House in 2024 as the party will likely need to maintain Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids’ hold on the Kansas 3rd Congressional District if it hopes to take back the majority.
Control of the seat has swung back and forth between the two parties over the past two decades, but Davids appears to have a firm grip on the seat. In the last race, Republicans tried and failed to use the economy to oust Davids.
And in an attempt to win over those voters, the White House has introduced a new phrase into the political lexicon: “Bidenomics.”
The term is a play on Reaganomics, used to describe President Ronald Reagan’s philosophy that if the government cut taxes for the rich, it would “trickle down” to the rest of the economy. Biden, a Democrat who has long opposed that philosophy, wants people to instead adopt his approach, focused more heavily on boosting the middle class.
“We decided to replace this theory with what the press has now called ‘Bidenomics,’” Biden said at a political rally in Philadelphia in June, referencing Reaganomics. “I don’t know what the hell that is. But it’s working.”
He’s now made several speeches on the topic, which he said was first used by The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times, to tout his economic record. In the speeches, including one Thursday in Philadelphia, Biden has denounced trickle-down economics, saying he believed the government needs to invest in middle class Americans.
“The trickle-down approach failed the middle class,” Biden said in his first speech on the topic in Chicago. “It failed America. It blew up the deficit. It increased inequity. And it weakened our infrastructure. It stripped the dignity, pride, and hope out of communities one after another, particularly through the Midwest, western Pennsylvania, and heading west.”
He said his approach had three principles: investing more in the American economy, through things like the infrastructure bill; growing the middle class through strong labor laws and support for education; and promoting economic competition to help small businesses.
The speech – and subsequent publicity push – was in response to what has widely been seen as a weak post-pandemic economy.
Amid snags in the supply chain, prices have risen on basic goods like gas and eggs. To help bring inflation down, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, making it more difficult to buy a house or start a new business.
Yet, even with hits to Americans wallets, the economic data looks good.
Unemployment is hovering around 3.6%, meaning it’s relatively easy for people to find a job. Inflation has fallen significantly from its peak in June of 2022, making prices more reasonable at the grocery store. And the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank based in Washington, estimates that wages are up 4.7% over the past year.
But convincing Americans bombarded with political ads last year lamenting the state of the economy, gas prices and talk of a potential recession that the economy is better than they think – and that Biden is responsible for the turnaround – is a challenge. A June Gallup poll found that 81% of Americans think the economy is “only fair” or “poor” in June, and only 1% thought the economy was excellent.
As of now, the Biden administration’s messaging doesn’t appear to be moving the needle. A July Quinnipiac poll found that only 37% of adults approve of how Biden is handling the economy, including 29% of adults who call themselves political independents.
“I’m not sure that any president can rightfully claim credit for changes in the economy because it’s so big and it moves so slow and when you come out of a pandemic, it’s kind of like coming out of a depression. You know what, the economy’s going to get better,” said Jan Kessinger, a member of the Blue Valley Schools Board of Education who was previously a moderate Republican state legislator.
“So, if he wants to take credit for the improved economy, he might as well take credit for the pandemic, which is silly.”
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Kansas City Democrat, said views of the economy come down to perceptions of how others are living.
“Because most people are, if they look at their own lives, and the polling suggests this, people say, ‘Well, I’m fine, but the economy is horrible.’ And so it’s easy to allow your thinking to go to somebody, your cousin or somebody, who is having bad times,” Cleaver said.
Cleaver has been quick to embrace the term Bidenomics and said he hopes it will help convince people that the economy isn’t as bad as they may think. But he also pointed out that the partisan nature of our politics will make it difficult for the administration to win over a majority of Americans.
There is a stark divide between how Democrats and Republicans feel about the economy, matching the widespread polarization across the country. The Quinnipiac poll found that 78% of registered Democrats approve of how Biden is handling the economy while 94% of registered Republicans disapprove.
“If people really looked at what has been accomplished on economic issues, he would be very popular, I think, because he’s accomplished a lot,” Shel Roufa, a 79-year-old Leawood resident, said of Biden after a legislative town hall at a public library in Leawood Monday night.
Wyatt Baehr, a 17-year-old rising senior at Blue Valley North High School, said it feels like his money is going further now than it did in the past. Baehr has worked multiple jobs, including recently at a cake shop.
“Republicans are persistently saying ‘recession, recession’ and there just hasn’t been one,” Baehr said.
Kessinger voiced concern with spending levels. While he said he understands the federal government can operate on a deficit for a certain time and the economy can handle it, the trillions in spending “starts to add up.”
“My God, look at the deficit that we put up,” he said.
Republican lawmakers have been happy to encourage discontent with the economy. After the Biden administration started pushing “Bidenomics,” GOP lawmakers at the Capitol quickly denounced it, pointing out that wage increases haven’t kept up with inflation and rising interest rates.
“I think it’s a tell,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican. “They know that’s sort of a weakness and people see it. You look at any of the public polling that’s out there, people don’t feel like they’re better off and they’re struggling. So I think it’s sort of a desperate attempt for his reelection.”
Sen. Roger Marshall, a Kansas Republican, said his constituents continue to complain to him about higher prices. He used a term that has been adopted by conservatives to describe the economy – “Bidenflation.”
“I know the President tries to put a lot of spin on it, but Bidenomics, if that’s what we’re going to call it, has been a huge failure,” Marshall said.
Marvin Singleton, an 83-year-old Republican and former Missouri state senator who has been living in Overland Park for the past five years, said he’s noticed the fees at his senior living area went up by 8% instead of 3% because of inflation.
But he said he’s optimistic about the economy and believes Biden has helped to turn it around.
“I think that Joe Biden has done a relatively good job with what he’s got to work with,” Singleton said.
This story was originally published July 24, 2023 at 6:00 AM.
