Joe Biden’s Story of Manufacturing in New York and the State of the Senate: What’s Missing in the Mid-term Elections?
The pitch by Joe Biden is becoming starker and alarmist as he looks for a way to win back the Congress that could cause his White House to end in misery.
The President was in New York to talk about manufacturing Thursday, not in one of the most important Senate swing states. The fact that he showed up in a state he won by more than 20 points two years ago shows how his low approval ratings limit his capacity to help his party climb out of a hole.
It was a reality that has undermined the administration attempts to take advantage of what they view as a robust record. Republicans criticized Biden after he told reporters the economy was strong as hell.
His approach reflected the extraordinarily testing election environment facing Democrats, who are in danger of losing their control of the House of Representatives as their hopes of clinging onto the Senate appear to ebb.
Eleven days out from the election, Republicans are targeting deep blue territory that would enable them to build a wave that could translate into a significant House majority. Republicans only need a net gain of five seats to flip the chamber, and they could win enough seats in the Empire State alone to do that, CNN’s Harry Enten wrote Thursday.
And races that will decide the fate of the Senate also appear to be narrowing, like in Arizona, for instance, where Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly once had a clear lead. John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania senator nominee who has had two strokes, had a shaky debate performance this week, which Democrats were worried about. The commonwealth represents the party’s best chance to pick up a seat and could be critical to their hopes of holding control of the 50-50 Senate, where Vice President Kamala Harris casts the tie-breaking vote. Schumer thought the Pennsylvania debate didn’t hurt us too much, but said he was concerned about the Georgia race.
The President is bracing for a lot of Republican investigations targeting his administration as well as the business affairs of his son, who is under investigation by the Justice Department.
It is far too early to properly judge the state of the race in the wake of recent elections. The history of first-term presidents getting re-elected in the year following the Supreme Court’s decision on contraceptives was shown to be reasserting itself by Biden’s speech on Thursday.
His speech shows how hard it is to highlight positive aspects of the economy when inflation is near 40-year highs.
As a result of Biden’s warnings of a political fight over entitlements and government spending, Washington may be at risk of being a less stable place if political control is divided between Democrats and Republicans.
“They’re going to shut down the government, refuse to pay America’s bills for the first time in American history to put America in default… unless we yield to their demands to cut Social Security and Medicare.”
The President admitted that Social Security is always at risk in elections but also said that the proposals of Scott and Johnson do threaten the retirement program.
The issue is that if they succeed all of those measures won’t be felt in this election. Biden has the chance to get help if he decides to run for reelection, but they are not realistic at the moment.
The economy was the issue that most Favored Republicans in the election. “But there were other issues, like the sanctity and security of our democracy and abortion, that Democrats really rallied around and overperformed expectations in the midterm election, despite the very negative views on the economy.”
The latter has even made the gubernatorial race in New York – which hasn’t elected a Republican statewide in two decades – unexpectedly competitive. Biden was with Hochul on Thursday in Syracuse, which is also home to a competitive House race.
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The President finds himself in the familiarly difficult spot of trying to claim credit for the encouraging aspects of the economy while empathizing with the pain many Americans are feeling. When he was vice president in the Obama administration, the White House faced a similar problem. Many people did not feel the effects of the recession at a time of high unemployment. Barack Obama argued in the run-up to the midterm elections in 2010 that handing control of Congress to the Republicans would be like giving the keys of the car back to the people who drove it into a ditch. Republicans gained control of the House and made huge gains in the Senate as voters weren’t happy.
Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve written about the disconnect between economic perceptions and reality. In the past, however, I got a lot of pushback from people insisting that the public was in deep shock over the resurgence of inflation after years of more or less stable prices.
When a voter’s income is lagging behind their costs, they are more likely to look for scapegoats. And Biden, as the president in power, gets the blame.
Biden blames the invasion of Ukraine by Russian President Vladimir Putin and the aftermath of supply chain disruption on factors that led to the hike in living costs. Republicans blame Biden for flushing the system with billions of dollars in cash and sending the economy into an overheating cycle.
In an interview with CNN’s Phil Mattingly on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen counseled patience since many of the measures the administration has taken to boost the economy will take time to come on line.
“And even though inflation is lower here than in most advanced countries, I know that’s no solace to someone sitting at the kitchen table, trying to put food on the table,” the President said.
His comment showed that Biden understands acutely the problem that appears increasingly likely to doom Democrats this election season. But there’s nothing in the short term he can do about it.
The growth we are seeing this quarter is solid. Growth has obviously slowed following a very rapid recovery from high unemployment,” Yellen said when asked about whether the latest GDP data assuaged any recession concerns. We are at a fullemployment economy. It is natural that growth would slow. And it has over the first three quarters of this year, but it continues to be OK. There is a very strong labor market. I don’t see signs of a recession in this economy at this point.”
During a one-on-one interview in Ohio that aired on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront,” Yellen said the third quarter GDP data released Thursday underscored the strength of the US economy as policy makers urgently move to cool off pervasive and soaring inflation that has had a sharp effect on American views of the economy – and endangered the Democratic majorities on Capitol Hill less than two weeks from the midterm elections.
Gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic activity — rose by an annualized rate of 2.6% during the third quarter, according to initial estimates released Thursday by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. That’s a turnaround from a decline of 1.6% in the first quarter of the year and negative 0.6% in the second.
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President Joe Biden and his top economic officials have tried to balance the two in the course of the year, as they try to highlight a rapid recovery and major legislative victories while also promising to tackle soaring prices.
According to the administration, the efforts to pull the US economy out of crisis haven’t received the credit officials believe is merited.
There were a lot of problems that we could have had, and difficulties for many American families. The problems that we do not currently have are a result of what the Biden administration has done. It’s often not credited for problems that don’t exist.
Yellen traveled to Cleveland as part of an administration push to highlight the major legislative wins – and the tens of billions of dollars in private sector investment those policies have driven toward manufacturing around the country.
It’s a critical piece of an economic strategy designed to address many of the vulnerabilities and failings laid bare as Covid-19 ravaged the world, with significant federal investments in infrastructure and shoring up – or creating from scratch – key pieces of critical supply chains.
Listing off a series of major private sector investments, including the 20 billion Intel plant opened a few hours drive outside of Columbus, she said they are real tangible investments happening now even though she acknowledged they would take time to full take effect.
“But you’re beginning to see repaired bridges come online – not in every community, but pretty soon. Many bridges that have been falling apart will be repaired in many communities. Money flowing into research and development is important for the long term growth of the American economy. And America’s strength is going to increase and we’re going to become a more competitive economy,” she said.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/27/politics/janet-yellen-gdp-recession-cnntv/index.html
Yellen Addresses the Debt Ceiling Crisis in Washington, D.C., and the House Appropriate Decree
Yellen also addressed the battle lines that have been drawn this week over raising the debt ceiling, a now-perpetual Washington crisis of its own making that House Republicans have once again pledged to utilize for leverage should they take the majority.
The President and I agree that America should not be held hostage by people in the Congress who think that they can compromise the credit rating of the United States and threaten to Default on Treasuries, which are the bedrock of global financial markets.
She made clear she didn’t plan on being one of the officials who leave an administration during the time period when top officials usually leave. Asked about reports she had informed the White House she wanted to stay into next year, Yellen said it was “an accurate read.”
According to Yellen, she felt excited by the program that they talked about. I believe it strengthens economic growth, addressing climate change, and strengthening American households. I want to be a part of that.
The State of the Economy: How Americans are feeling today and tomorrow compared to last year, and how they have been affected by recent events in the United States
Only 35% of US adults say that things are going well in the country today, with 65% saying things are going badly. Fewer than 10 percent of people said things were going well in surveys during the summer and fall. The share who now say things are going very badly is 19%, down from 34% in CNN’s polling this summer and 26% in October. The positive shift in mood is most evident among Democrats, 58% of whom now say things are going well, up from 47% in October.
The public gave low ratings to Biden on immigration and gun policy, according to the poll. By contrast, 50% approve of Biden’s approach to protecting democracy in America and his handling of the situation in Ukraine, respectively – in both cases, a modest uptick from CNN’s polling earlier this year.
The current cost of living represents a near-universal worry, with 93% saying they’re at least somewhat concerned by this, including 63% very concerned. Around 80% of people say that they are concerned about the recent increase in interest rates, with 42% saying they are very concerned. Relatively few are seriously worried about someone in their household losing a job within the next few months – 37% say they’re at least somewhat concerned about this, but just 15% that they’re very concerned.
Most people said they were taking measures to cut expenses in the past few months, because of the current economic conditions. About 7 in 10 Americans (71%) say they’ve cut back on nonessential spending to afford necessities, with 71% also saying they’ve changed what groceries they buy in order to stay within their budget – up from 63% on both questions in CNN’s polling conducted this spring. A similar 70% say they’ve had to cut back on how much they’re spending on holiday gifts this year. And 34% say that they’ve had difficulty in finding affordable housing. With gas prices falling, however, the share who say they’ve cut back on driving has ticked downward, from 54% this spring to 49% in the latest poll. That is still higher than the percentage of people who said they had cut back on driving last year, when the price of gas was just a few pennies cheaper per gallon.
The divides in Americans’ financial outlooks suggest they’re influenced both by their current level of income and also, in some cases, their partisan support. Two-thirds of Republicans in households making less than $50,000 annually say their financial situation has worsened over the past year, as do 45% of Democrats making less than $50,000. The majority of Republicans in households earning $50,000 or more say they are worse off than Democrats in similar households.
A random national sample of 1,208 adults were included in the CNN Poll, which was conducted by SSRS on December 1 through 7. Either online or by phone, surveys were conducted. Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 points; it is larger for subgroups.
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At this point, that is becoming harder to maintain. Eggs have been priced higher since last summer, but other goods and gasoline prices have gone down. As I said, the overall inflation rate in the second half of 2022 was around 2 percent, which has been normal for the past few decades, while the unemployment rate in December, at 3.5 percent, was at a 50-year low. inflation-adjusted wages, which fell due to supply-chain problems and the Ukraine shock, are rising again.
For the past two decades, Gallup has surveyed the American public on a collection of policy issues and broad perceptions of society in its annual “Mood of the Nation” poll. Average ratings hit a record low during the Covid-19 epidemic and haven’t changed a whole lot this year.
34% of people satisfaction with gun laws this year is a new low. There were policies on abortion, quality of public education, crime control, and the fight against poverty and homelessness.
“This notion of a sour mood that the country finds itself in – a pretty persistent one since Covid that the country hasn’t really bounced out of – is a challenge for our political leadership,” said David Chalian, CNN’s political director. I think a president alone can upend this.
But satisfaction with broader aspects of American life have been generally trending down for decades, through multiple administration changes and political party shifts.
There has been a decline of national harmony. “Our baseline was a simpler time when people were more content with the country, before a lot of events happened that we know have eroded trust over time.”
Perceptions of the overall quality of life in the US dropped to a record low in 2023, as did perceptions of wealth inequality. According to the Gallup poll, a less than 25% of adults are satisfied with the way income and wealth is distributed.
“When he addresses the country at his State of the Union next week, how does the President tout progress while also still giving voice to this very, very real sensation among Americans that things are not going quite as well as perhaps they felt they have in the past?”