As Biden is gaining closer to winning the upcoming election, his economic plan deserves more scrutiny. So far, Biden is clearly looking to Obama for his policy aspirations. Unfortunately, Obama was following FDR’s playbook to the detriment of our economy. Let’s take a look:
Obama’s policies resulted in the poorest recovery since the New Deal, just as FDR’s meddling only prolonged America’s longest depression ever. Obama followed FDR’s failed playbook – he raised taxes, over-regulated businesses, gave organized labor excessive power, instituted policies that discouraged people from working, and hurt international trade.
Firmly entrenched in Keynesian economics, Obama believed in government spending while wholeheartedly crowding out private spending; he substituted inefficient political and crony-based spending for free-market, give-the-public-what-they want spending.
This week in the WSJ, Jay Starkman issued a warning on Biden’s plans, in “Bidenomics May Repeat FDR’s Blunder.” He notes, “Today the U.S. economy is recovering from a great crash, as it was before Roosevelt’s tax onslaught. Unfortunately, Mr. Biden doesn’t seem to have learned the right lessons. Should he win in November, he proposes to cancel the Trump tax cuts, raising the top federal income-tax rate back to 39.6%, and raise the corporate income tax from 21% to 28%. He also promises to limit low capital-gains tax rates to the first $1 million in profits and extend the full Social Security tax to income above $400,000.” With Biden also promising to increase regulation and institute energy policy that will produce less energy at a much higher cost, danger is in the wind.
Why go back to the policies that have so clearly failed us before. After three years of robust economic activity during Trump’s administration before the onslaught of COVID, this country can neither risk nor afford Biden’s plans.