In Chicago today, President Joe Biden gave a historic speech at the Old Post Office Building downtown. In it, he was crystal clear that he has launched a new economic vision for the United States to stand against that of today’s Republicans. As he has said since he took office, he intends to build the economy “from the middle out and the bottom up instead of just the top down.”
Bidenomics, Biden has grown with the office faster than any recent President. He is just now 'hitting his stride'. At any cost he must be given a second term to continue to reverse the Reagan-Gingrich-WBush-Trumpian economic/democratic/moral sclerosic disaster.
Twas a fabulous important speech! No more supply chain interruptions. People having pride in what they do and actually getting a fair wage is what this is all about. Strengthening our infrastructure also gives our public educators in our schools a great opportunity to teach the truths about history. Gives every race and gender of choice, a time to rejoice and to give the uber wealthy a big third finger salute. Bidenomics is exciting and I am not going to let anyone burst my bubble as I wrap myself in it!
The original Progressives "...included Republicans Theodore Roosevelt, Hiram Johnson, Robert M. La Follette, and Charles Evans Hughes; Democrats William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and Al Smith..." from Wikipedia.
The original Progressives brought many welcome changes to our society. President Biden is closer to those original Progressives than any other President I've known in my three quarters of a century.
I’m squarely behind his economic plan that supports working folks. I just don’t understand why public opinion doesn’t jive with what he and the Dems have accomplished already and what they’d like to do. It’s such a stark contrast from the rich first Rs...
Joe Biden is the right man for this time in our history. I love the fact that he takes on the Republicans by turning their jabs and scorn back on them--Bidenomics is like Dark Brandon--you dismissed me but I will use it to reveal the weakness behind the jabs.
Now what we need to see is who else can carry on the banner here. Joe is setting up a framework that can bridge and unite all of the factions in the Democratic Party. He has the political savvy to know that to beat the Republicans, whether its Trump or DeSantis or someone else, there has to be a single theme. In 2020 it was American Democray is at stake. In 2024 it is going to be about a return of the American Dream.
Thank you, Heather. With each letter you write, and reading the wonderful comments, I learn more and more about American History. I have come to appreciate TR and Lincoln and FDR, too, in new and exciting ways. I love how you linked Biden’s speech to the truth about “trickle down” economics, a lie from the beginning. That is why I always abhorred Reagan, an evil man in my book. News about Bidenomics is good news for We the People and we are already seeing results in two “short” years! We must focus on keeping the Senate, expanding the number of Democratic senators and getting the House back. Biden’s election goes without saying. I saw something about needing 23 senators in 2024 to keep our majority. So much work to do, so little time!
With everything his opponents try to use against him, Biden somehow turns it around - just as he embraced the originally mocking "Dark Brandon" meme, it's amusing to see you write:
"Biden has recently embraced the term “Bidenomics,” a term coined by his opponents who insist that their embrace of tax cuts is the only way to create a healthy economy. But Bidenomics is simply a new word for a time-honored American idea."
Thanks, Dr. Heather, for your clear-eyed LFAAs - I don't know how you do it but I am grateful that you do.
What a relief to hear a President call out the Trickledown theory. I did not think Biden would be a leader, but he certainly has continued to surprise me. When i first heard about Trickledown economics i had a sinking feeling for the survival of this country. It was 42 years ago that i gave birth to my child and i was so fearful of the future with this trickledown approach. I am amazed and full of hope that Biden has found his voice. He was just what our country needed to support a healthy society. I never understood how we could live with so much and see our fellow countrymen not have housing or food. The inequality is shameful. When i was in Sweden and saw their apartments are integrated with all levels of income. I hope Biden will be reelected as he certainly is a good leader for bringing out the best in our society.
Is there anyone left who still insists that there is no real difference between the two major political parties?
Ralph Nader, is there something you want to say?
HCR’s letter today describes the stark difference in socio-economic terms, not mentioning the moral bankruptcy of the current Republican Party. Their steep slide from mere hypocrisy to complete degeneracy; the abandonment of even the appearance of public decency, has been frightening.
Biden’s Chicago speech, and recent SCOTUS decisions, give one a bright hope of yet another re-assertion of all that has been best about American democracy.
I am hopeful for others IF people re-elect President Biden. However, think Bidenomics is too late to help me - an older GenXer.
I’m 55 now and very pessimistic over my own future. My retirement plan is to pray that I get a fatal disease before I get to the point where I can’t work anymore. I went to college. I worked hard all my adult life. Yet today, I can barely afford the cheapest of apartments AND transportation to work, and certainly can never afford to retire.
President Biden was absolutely correct about trickle-down economics not working for most regular people.
My family *was* solid middle class.
My father’s White Anglo-Saxon Protestant parents worked hard, owned a home, and sent all their four children to college. Their children all did well enough to eventually own their own homes and raise families.
My mother’s parents were children of Italian Catholic immigrants. Her father worked extremely hard to support his mother and siblings, put his brothers through college, married during WWII, and he & my grandmother raised four children. My grandfather and a partner co-formed a cabinet-making company. He elevated his family to the middle class. He put his sons through college. They all owned homes, raised families, and sent their children to college. His daughter, my mother, got married to my father.
My father worked and my mother stayed home to raise four children. My parents couldn’t afford to send us to college. We all went though, but used loans.
I started my adult life when Reagan took office. I went to college (I took out loans). By the time I graduated, my grandfather’s small cabinet-making company got eaten up by Home Depot, as did so many other businesses to larger companies.
Many small businesses disappeared and corporations got bigger and bigger. Small groceries mostly disappeared in favor of Supermarkets. Telephone companies exploded - Bell, became Ma Bell, then Verizon and AT&T. Automobile companies got stronger and were protected by government during various financial issues but could afford to pay Lobbyists to help further their interests and to buy out innovative competition (eg no electric cars even though we had the technology).
Corporations got bigger as they stomped out their competition by absorbing or destroying them. All types of businesses followed this model - Drug stores, Music stores, Gas stations, Restaurants, Medical Test facilities (X-rays, MRI’s, etc), Tax Prep Corporations, etc. Even physicians had to form Medical Practice Groups in order to pay for medical insurance because the companies within the insurance industry grew into tremendous corporations.
All these big corporations basically destroyed most of their competitors and were free to drive up prices. Just as when gas and diesel prices went up causing businesses to impose fuel surcharges, big corporations who ‘cornered the market’ on products helped drive up prices in other businesses.
Regular people like me really got squeezed. We couldn’t afford the same things our parents could. Adding to this problem, wages/salaries stagnated because corporations put their profits into growing and giving profits to shareholders instead of their workers. They also made employees sign non-compete clauses to ensure their competition couldn’t benefit from the training they gave their employees by “stealing” them through promises of higher pay. So workers couldn’t leave as easily and weren’t getting raises.
This is where we’re at now and media is helping the elite & their corporations blame immigrants and “socialists” for our problems.
Unless President Biden can get corporations to immediately start increasing worker pay (maybe by tax incentives if companies prove they raised wages/salaries by certain percentages?), people like me are going to feel pessimistic and squeezed.
I really hope Biden is re-elected for the next generation’s sake and that we stay on this track.
The best book I have read on the economic history of The New Deal is Paul Krugman's "The Conscience of a Liberal" published in 2007. He describes how instituting minimum wages, protection of unions, and higher taxes on the wealthy, created a large middle class for the first time in the United States. Bidenonomics promises to ACTUALLY make America great again. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on Krugman's book.
FDR attacked Hoover for excessive spending. Isn’t that interesting.
A bridge collapsed over a small river here in Memphis in 1980 and US Senator Jim Sasser Tn. got the GAO to investigate and report on the nation’s bridges.
The report was ominous but not much was done until now.
Bidenomics, Biden has grown with the office faster than any recent President. He is just now 'hitting his stride'. At any cost he must be given a second term to continue to reverse the Reagan-Gingrich-WBush-Trumpian economic/democratic/moral sclerosic disaster.
Twas a fabulous important speech! No more supply chain interruptions. People having pride in what they do and actually getting a fair wage is what this is all about. Strengthening our infrastructure also gives our public educators in our schools a great opportunity to teach the truths about history. Gives every race and gender of choice, a time to rejoice and to give the uber wealthy a big third finger salute. Bidenomics is exciting and I am not going to let anyone burst my bubble as I wrap myself in it!
The original Progressives "...included Republicans Theodore Roosevelt, Hiram Johnson, Robert M. La Follette, and Charles Evans Hughes; Democrats William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson, and Al Smith..." from Wikipedia.
The original Progressives brought many welcome changes to our society. President Biden is closer to those original Progressives than any other President I've known in my three quarters of a century.
I’m squarely behind his economic plan that supports working folks. I just don’t understand why public opinion doesn’t jive with what he and the Dems have accomplished already and what they’d like to do. It’s such a stark contrast from the rich first Rs...
Joe Biden is the right man for this time in our history. I love the fact that he takes on the Republicans by turning their jabs and scorn back on them--Bidenomics is like Dark Brandon--you dismissed me but I will use it to reveal the weakness behind the jabs.
Now what we need to see is who else can carry on the banner here. Joe is setting up a framework that can bridge and unite all of the factions in the Democratic Party. He has the political savvy to know that to beat the Republicans, whether its Trump or DeSantis or someone else, there has to be a single theme. In 2020 it was American Democray is at stake. In 2024 it is going to be about a return of the American Dream.
Thank you, Heather. With each letter you write, and reading the wonderful comments, I learn more and more about American History. I have come to appreciate TR and Lincoln and FDR, too, in new and exciting ways. I love how you linked Biden’s speech to the truth about “trickle down” economics, a lie from the beginning. That is why I always abhorred Reagan, an evil man in my book. News about Bidenomics is good news for We the People and we are already seeing results in two “short” years! We must focus on keeping the Senate, expanding the number of Democratic senators and getting the House back. Biden’s election goes without saying. I saw something about needing 23 senators in 2024 to keep our majority. So much work to do, so little time!
Hurray for Biden....Hurray for Chicago....Hurray for Heather!!!!
With everything his opponents try to use against him, Biden somehow turns it around - just as he embraced the originally mocking "Dark Brandon" meme, it's amusing to see you write:
"Biden has recently embraced the term “Bidenomics,” a term coined by his opponents who insist that their embrace of tax cuts is the only way to create a healthy economy. But Bidenomics is simply a new word for a time-honored American idea."
Thanks, Dr. Heather, for your clear-eyed LFAAs - I don't know how you do it but I am grateful that you do.
What a relief to hear a President call out the Trickledown theory. I did not think Biden would be a leader, but he certainly has continued to surprise me. When i first heard about Trickledown economics i had a sinking feeling for the survival of this country. It was 42 years ago that i gave birth to my child and i was so fearful of the future with this trickledown approach. I am amazed and full of hope that Biden has found his voice. He was just what our country needed to support a healthy society. I never understood how we could live with so much and see our fellow countrymen not have housing or food. The inequality is shameful. When i was in Sweden and saw their apartments are integrated with all levels of income. I hope Biden will be reelected as he certainly is a good leader for bringing out the best in our society.
Is there anyone left who still insists that there is no real difference between the two major political parties?
Ralph Nader, is there something you want to say?
HCR’s letter today describes the stark difference in socio-economic terms, not mentioning the moral bankruptcy of the current Republican Party. Their steep slide from mere hypocrisy to complete degeneracy; the abandonment of even the appearance of public decency, has been frightening.
Biden’s Chicago speech, and recent SCOTUS decisions, give one a bright hope of yet another re-assertion of all that has been best about American democracy.
I am hopeful for others IF people re-elect President Biden. However, think Bidenomics is too late to help me - an older GenXer.
I’m 55 now and very pessimistic over my own future. My retirement plan is to pray that I get a fatal disease before I get to the point where I can’t work anymore. I went to college. I worked hard all my adult life. Yet today, I can barely afford the cheapest of apartments AND transportation to work, and certainly can never afford to retire.
President Biden was absolutely correct about trickle-down economics not working for most regular people.
My family *was* solid middle class.
My father’s White Anglo-Saxon Protestant parents worked hard, owned a home, and sent all their four children to college. Their children all did well enough to eventually own their own homes and raise families.
My mother’s parents were children of Italian Catholic immigrants. Her father worked extremely hard to support his mother and siblings, put his brothers through college, married during WWII, and he & my grandmother raised four children. My grandfather and a partner co-formed a cabinet-making company. He elevated his family to the middle class. He put his sons through college. They all owned homes, raised families, and sent their children to college. His daughter, my mother, got married to my father.
My father worked and my mother stayed home to raise four children. My parents couldn’t afford to send us to college. We all went though, but used loans.
I started my adult life when Reagan took office. I went to college (I took out loans). By the time I graduated, my grandfather’s small cabinet-making company got eaten up by Home Depot, as did so many other businesses to larger companies.
Many small businesses disappeared and corporations got bigger and bigger. Small groceries mostly disappeared in favor of Supermarkets. Telephone companies exploded - Bell, became Ma Bell, then Verizon and AT&T. Automobile companies got stronger and were protected by government during various financial issues but could afford to pay Lobbyists to help further their interests and to buy out innovative competition (eg no electric cars even though we had the technology).
Corporations got bigger as they stomped out their competition by absorbing or destroying them. All types of businesses followed this model - Drug stores, Music stores, Gas stations, Restaurants, Medical Test facilities (X-rays, MRI’s, etc), Tax Prep Corporations, etc. Even physicians had to form Medical Practice Groups in order to pay for medical insurance because the companies within the insurance industry grew into tremendous corporations.
All these big corporations basically destroyed most of their competitors and were free to drive up prices. Just as when gas and diesel prices went up causing businesses to impose fuel surcharges, big corporations who ‘cornered the market’ on products helped drive up prices in other businesses.
Regular people like me really got squeezed. We couldn’t afford the same things our parents could. Adding to this problem, wages/salaries stagnated because corporations put their profits into growing and giving profits to shareholders instead of their workers. They also made employees sign non-compete clauses to ensure their competition couldn’t benefit from the training they gave their employees by “stealing” them through promises of higher pay. So workers couldn’t leave as easily and weren’t getting raises.
This is where we’re at now and media is helping the elite & their corporations blame immigrants and “socialists” for our problems.
Unless President Biden can get corporations to immediately start increasing worker pay (maybe by tax incentives if companies prove they raised wages/salaries by certain percentages?), people like me are going to feel pessimistic and squeezed.
I really hope Biden is re-elected for the next generation’s sake and that we stay on this track.
Oh, wow, Heather, what an inspiring Letter tonight. With the end of every paragraph, I expected to read..."But wait, there's more!" And there was!
Everything grows from the roots. Thanks Professor HCR for your illustrating the truth of history.
The best book I have read on the economic history of The New Deal is Paul Krugman's "The Conscience of a Liberal" published in 2007. He describes how instituting minimum wages, protection of unions, and higher taxes on the wealthy, created a large middle class for the first time in the United States. Bidenonomics promises to ACTUALLY make America great again. Here is a link to the Wikipedia article on Krugman's book.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conscience_of_a_Liberal
FDR attacked Hoover for excessive spending. Isn’t that interesting.
A bridge collapsed over a small river here in Memphis in 1980 and US Senator Jim Sasser Tn. got the GAO to investigate and report on the nation’s bridges.
The report was ominous but not much was done until now.
A fine Biden speech built upon fine history. Thanks HCR.