President Biden claims that since taking office his policies have helped attract “commitments for more than $435 billion in private investment in American manufacturing and American energy.” Biden contends that federal investment “attracts private investment,” which in turn creates jobs and even entire industries, notably in the clean energy sector.
Federal investment attracts private investment. It creates jobs and industries, and it demonstrates we’re all in this together.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 11, 2023
Since I took office, we’ve attracted commitments for more than $435 billion in private investment in American manufacturing and American energy.
Many of the comments on Biden’s post reject his claim, doubting that even successful federal government/corporate synergy redounds to the worker. The critique claims the middle class worker doesn’t receive benefits commensurate with what the executive class gets in deals like this — and that the government using taxpayer dollars to seed the bed for big business doesn’t improve the standard of living for the average American citizen.
In this view, Biden is being taken to task by Republicans for espousing a fed-centric version of trickle down economics — criticism from a group that usually advocates for trickle down economics.
Biden disagrees, saying “my Investing in America agenda is building an economy that benefits hard-working Americans in every community across the country, not just those at the top.”
Biden has his detractors about federal spending even if it kickstarts private investment. But even the conservative, Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal acknowledges the impact of Biden’s moves. A recent WSJ article was titled: Biden’s Green Subsidies Are Attracting Billions of Dollars to Red States.
The subtitle of that article? “GOP-leaning states, many with ample sun, wind and available land, are luring clean-energy projects boosted by legislation their representatives opposed.”
The WSJ isn’t alone in backing Biden’s claim that the results are broad and deep. The New York Times reported in January that “between the signing of the I.R.A. (Inflation Reduction Act) and Jan. 31, announcements of the largest clean-energy investments have been in Georgia and Idaho, followed by Tennessee, then Michigan, then South Carolina and Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Kansas, Nevada and Arizona.”
Texas, too, known as a fossil fuel cynosure, is a winner in the clean energy game. According to the February Climate Central Weather Power report, “the largest contributions to national solar and wind electricity generation came from a few states—for example, California generated 58,664,084 megawatt-hours (MWh) of solar and Texas generated 129,578,478 MWh of wind.” Texas Senator Ted Cruz, for one, opposed Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
