According to the Joe Biden White House, their highly touted economic plan, dubbed ‘Bidenomics,’ is working. Indeed, the success or failure of this plan could mean Biden win in November or not. 

According to the Biden White House, their highly touted economic plan, dubbed ‘Bidenomics,’ is working. “President Biden and Vice president Harris came into office determined to rebuild our economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down – and that strategy is working,” the official White House website stated. But what exactly is Bidenomics? And is it actually working?

What is Bidenomics?

In the White House’s own words, Bidenomics is an effort to “move beyond…failed trickle-down policies,” an economic plan with “three key pillars.” The first pillar of Bidenomics is “making smart public investments in America,” which holds that “targeted public investment can attract more private sector investment.” Bidenomics intends to boost public investment as a share of the economy – which has fallen to about three percent (down from seven percent in the 1960s.) Public investment is tailored towards rebuilding infrastructure (“the necessary foundation for durable and shared economic growth”), such as roads, bridges, high-speed internet, ports, and airports.  Public investment also calls for spending in industries “critical to our national security and economic security,” i.e., domestically made semiconductors.

The second pillar of Bidenomics is “empowering and educating workers to grow the middle class,” which calls for what’d you think: creating working class jobs, and to that end, investing in apprenticeships and career technical education programs. The end result, the administration hopes, will be low unemployment and high wages.

The third pillar of Bidenomics is “promoting competition to lower costs and help entrepreneurs and small businesses thrive.” Basically, the third pillar means to address the monopolization that has stifled the US economy during the 21st century. By promoting competition, the Biden administration means to generate “lower costs for consumers and higher ages for workers.” The most obvious example relates to efforts to lower prescription drug prices.   

So, is it all working?

Is Bidenomics working?

Whether Bidenomics is working or not seems to come down to who you ask. Robert Reich argued that Bidenomics is “turning out to be the most successful set of economic policies the United States has witnessed in a half-century.”

“New economic data last week showed that inflation cooled to 3% in June, down from over 9% last year, and close to the Fed’s goal of 2%. And as inflation has subsided, real wages – that is, what paychecks will buy – have finally risen,” Reich wrote for The Guardian last year.

Still, others argue that Bidenomics is leaving working-class Americans behind.

“Data released late last month show food insecurity at its highest level since Biden took office, and average financial hardship in 2023 is worse than it was over the last three years,” The Lever reported late last year. “In other words, “Bidenomics,” the president’s economic plan to grow the economy “from the middle out and the bottom up,” has been accompanied by a humanitarian crisis.” That article continues to blame Democrats for failing to make COVID-era aid programs permanent.

Only about one-third of Americans approve of Biden’s economic guidance. True, Biden’s contemporary hyper partisanship could be suppressing Biden’s economic approval rating. But the fact that millions of Americans are reporting financial hardship and food insecurity no doubt factors in Biden’s low economic approval rating. If people are hungry and broke they’re not going to approve of the economy – no matter who is running it.

Biden will need to convince Americans that his three-tiered economic plan is working if he wants to be reelected to a second term.  

The Joe Biden Question No One Dares Ask.

What would happen if current U.S. President Joe Biden passed away suddenly? Who would take over the Democratic Party and run against Donald Trump? 

What if Joe Biden just dies one evening?

I have spent months raising questions about President Biden’s physical and mental health, often in pointed ways, sometimes without much tact.

But I’m not the only one.

The question is creeping further and further into the mainstream.

In arguing that the Democrats should primary Biden, Politico's Jack Schafer said in a Fall 2023 op-ed that “primary adversaries would prepare us for the all too real possibility that he’s incapacitated by a stroke, seriously injured in one of his frequent falls or another bike crash, or just dies on evening.”

Clearly, that was then, and Joe Biden has won the South Carolina primary, so that won't happen. 

Joe Biden’s death is entirely plausible

Yes, anyone could just die at any time. Life is fickle.

But President Biden seems especially vulnerable to an imminent death - a sad reality to consider.

The guy is 80, which means he’s lived four years past the US male life expectancy – which of course means that, statistically, Biden was not expected to live as long as he has. And it’s not like Joe Biden is some robust 80-year-old, rock climbing on the weekends, writing novels in his spare time. Biden looks and sounds old. He reportedly takes the weekends off. And the evenings. And a long lunch. And the mornings. He’s working a 35-hour workweek in an effort to preserve his limited strength.

Schafer’s suggestion, that Biden could be seriously injured in one of his frequent falls is completely realistic. Falls are a leading killer of people in Biden’s demographic. Joe Biden has taken a few spills and he’s probably going to take more.

Like the one at the US Air Force Academy commencement. The fall could have happened to anyone, but it happened to Biden and when it did he looked especially old and frail as he struggled on the ground and was finally helped back to his feet.

A primary would sharpen Joe Biden

Schafer argues that Democrats should primary Joe Biden, that a primary would be smart for Biden and good for the party, something that isn't going to happen now. 

“Biden needs a primary opponent who can prepare him for the 2024 general election, somebody who can make him prove that he can still run the traps and beat whichever Republican he faces. If Biden can’t vanquish a worthy Democrat in primary season, he has no business entering the general,” Schafer wrote.

That won’t happen and wasn't ever going to happen. Democrats are still shell-shocked from the primaries of 2008 and 2016, still blaming contested primaries for adversity/failure in the general election. In 2008, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama degraded each other for months before Obama finally advanced to the general.

And in 2016, Bernie Sanders launched a surprisingly resilient insurgency campaign that many blamed for Clinton’s eventual primary loss. So, the Dems were always going to preserve their incumbent from the trials and tribulations of a primary, should his viability be damaged.

But I’m with Schafer on this one. “Nobody is owed another term just because they’re completing their first. You should have to fight for the right to lead your party. And your country.”

Who Could Have Primaried Biden?

Possibilities like California Governor Gavin Newsom or Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg could have been good choices. “Buttigieg could be Biden’s rabbit in the primary, running so hard and so fast that Biden would pick up the pace and show the doubters his own youthful stamina,” Schafer suggests.

But it didn’t have to be some youthful rabbit like Buttigieg. “Even Beto O’Rourke or Amy Klobuchar or Cory Booker or Chris Murphy or Elizabeth Warren would suffice. Just any heavyweight under the age of 75 with the pugilistic skills to put the current champion through a hammering 12 rounds.”

Sounds good to me. But, again, that isn't going to happen now.