President Biden tweeted a teaser of the budget he’ll announce next week, readying his audience for expenditures it will contain, while careful to note that “some House Republicans” have “supported raising costs by repealing the Inflation Reduction Act” and “cutting taxes for the wealthy and large corporations.”
Biden is trying to sweep to his side everyone who is against such tax breaks for the rich and rising inflation, stating that his policies reject those GOP initiatives.
“I have a different vision,” Biden says in closing, putting up a fairly big tent for those against “cutting programs that seniors and families count on.”
Some House Republicans have supported raising costs by repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, cutting taxes for the wealthy and large corporations, and cutting programs that seniors and families count on.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 27, 2023
I have a different vision.
This tweet and others in this lane come as Biden preps not only to present his budget but to present himself as a successful incumbent running for a second term. It’s become increasingly clear that when Biden does announce his run for a second stint in the Oval Office, he will be running on the economy.
In a nation where many citizens feel hemmed in by nagging inflation at the supermarket and wage-stealing health care costs, it’s a risky platform in the minds of some political operatives. But Biden’s team believes that historic employment figures bolster his case, claiming also that “take-home pay has gone up.”
While we have made progress on inflation, we have more work to do—but we face global economic challenges from a position of strength.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 24, 2023
Annual inflation in January is down from the summer, the unemployment rate has remained at or near a 50-year low, and take-home pay has gone up.
On a number of important economic fronts, according to the National Economic Council’s Bharat Ramamurti, it does look sunny — or less cloudy than it was. Referencing consumer spending and business investment metrics, Ramamurti told Axios that these two critical economic bellwethers “show that people have a lot of confidence in their financial condition and where the economy is headed.”
Biden is also betting that, as much as people complain about the status quo, they are unwilling to tolerate changes in their benefits — especially if those changes are cuts that seem designed to benefit the wealthy more than the working class.
Biden is essentially saying that he will put Social Security up against the price of eggs anytime. He’d like egg prices to be lower, but his gamble is that in a binary, people would rather have a president who allows the price of eggs to go up than a president who allows Social Security and Medicare to be dismantled.
Nearly all Biden’s recent tweets — those that do not concern the battle in Ukraine for what he considers the soul of democracy — are geared toward his economic accomplishments on infrastructure, insulin costs, etc. and his pledge to protect these big national programs.
We will protect Medicare and Social Security. pic.twitter.com/nXYOld2yas
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) February 26, 2023
