President Biden delivered a speech Wednesday in Chicago with a condemnation of "trickle-down economics" and promotion of "Bidenomics" — a term economist critics equated to excessive spending and inflation.
"The economy that grows the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, instead of just the top down — when that happens, everyone does well," Biden said in a nearly 40 minute address. "This vision is a fundamental break from the economic theory that has failed the middle class for decades now. It’s called trickle-down economics."
This idea that "Bideonomics" benefits all Americans, three economists told Fox News Digital, is easily disputed by historically high levels of inflation.
"Bidenomics has been defined by 40-year-high inflation, record drops in labor productivity, anemic economic growth, growing credit card debt, rising interest rates, insipid labor force participation, onerous regulation, falling real incomes, and runaway government spending, borrowing, and printing of money," EJ Antoni, a research fellow for the Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, told Fox News Digital. "Distilled down to a single word, Bidenomics means ‘failure.’"
WHITE HOUSE RIDICULED FOR DEFENDING BIDEN'S ECONOMIC RECORD AS 'INCREDIBLY POPULAR:' 'WITH WHO?'
Biden’s speech comes amid a week of travel from Maryland, to Illinois, to New York, for a series of speeches and campaign receptions. His economic message Wednesday is expected to set the tone for his reelection campaign. A White House memo this week touted Biden’s economic agenda and accomplishments, which includes job growth, low unemployment, and a historic infrastructure plan.
"Bidenomics is rooted in the simple idea that we need to grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up—not the top down," the White House memo stated.
Biden tweeted Tuesday that he created more jobs in two years than previous administrations did in the entirety of their first terms — a point dismissed by critics as misleading due to lost jobs amid the coronavirus pandemic.
BIDEN REPEATS MISLEADING JOBS CLAIM IN STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS
Desmond Lachman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said the massive spending from the Biden administration helped boost employment, but inevitably led to inflation.
"They spend like drunken sailors — that is what’s causing problems," Lachman told Fox News Digital. "It’s easy to get unemployment down for a short period of time, but it’s difficult for a long period of time. The way they got it down so much is by overstimulating the economy, but now they have inflation."
Biden took office in January 2021 with an inflation rate of a little over 1%, which hiked to 9% by June 2022, and has since fallen to 4%. A Fox News poll from May found 83% of respondents said the nation has a negative economic condition. The poll found Biden’s approval rating on the economy at 32%.
BIDEN SLAMMED OVER 'PREPOSTEROUS' CLAIM HE CREATED MORE JOBS IN 2 YEARS THAN ANY PRESIDENT IN 4
Biden’s American Rescue Plan passed by Congress in 2021 as a pandemic emergency package may cost up to $3.5 trillion. His Inflation Reduction Act passed in 2022 cost an estimated $740 billion.
Chris Edwards, an economic scholar at the Cato Institute, noted these two plans as an obvious cause of inflation. One more subtly harmful aspect of Biden’s economic plan, he said, is the "corporate welfare" of federal government "handouts" to companies they deem beneficial, such as energy and computer chip manufacturers.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
"Vast corporate subsidies under Bidenomics will lead to increased political corruption as companies jockey for federal handouts," Edwards told Fox News Digital. "Leading up to the 2024 election, there will likely be a wave of news reports on Biden’s failed corporate subsidies, which will undermine the Bidenomics narrative, just like the crash of the subsidized and corrupt Solyndra was a stain on the Obama administration."