The size of Biden’s stimulus package was excessive and unnecessary. Before Biden became president, Congress had already spent $4trn fighting the crisis. Now he proposes $1.9trn more emergency spending, which would take the total to over 25% of GDP in 2019. But America was not in a normal recession that is best solved by a calibrated slug of government spending. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/02/06/why-joe-bidens-proposed-stimulus-is-too-big https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/05/11/joe-biden-is-more-responsible-for-high-inflation-than-for-abundant-jobs
Biden’s stimulus put a rocket under inflation. Biden’s colossal economic stimulus in early 2021 first set inflation on its feverish trajectory, before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent prices spiralling further… In April [2023] “core” consumer prices, which exclude energy and food, were 13.4% higher than when he came to office. They have risen more than in other g7 countries, and their acceleration coincided with the introduction of Mr Biden’s stimulus. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/10/27/the-risks-of-bidenomics-go-beyond-inflation https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/05/11/joe-biden-is-more-responsible-for-high-inflation-than-for-abundant-jobs
Biden’s protectionism is counterproductive. The government will dole out $180bn in subsidies and tax credits to local firms over the next five years. At 0.7% of gdp, that is more than supposedly dirigiste France… This phase of Bidenomics is praiseworthy in its aims. But its protectionism makes America less likely to achieve them… The trouble is that protectionism is a poison pill that weakens the whole enterprise. It hurts friend and foe alike, sapping America’s alliances of good faith and encouraging others to respond in kind. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/10/27/the-risks-of-bidenomics-go-beyond-inflation
Biden’s promotion of friendshoring is misguided and counterproductive. Biden touts the benefits of “friendshoring”, signalling to company bosses that shifting away from China. The consequences of this new thinking are now becoming clear. Unfortunately, it is bringing neither resilience nor security…Dig deeper and you find that America’s reliance on China remains intact. America may be redirecting its demand from China to other countries. But production in those places now relies more on Chinese inputs than ever. As South-East Asia’s exports to America have risen, for instance, its imports of intermediate inputs from China have exploded. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/08/10/joe-bidens-china-strategy-is-not-working
Biden’s initial student-debt relief plan was a bad idea, overly broad and fiscally irresponsible. But the administration’s extension of a payment pause is also unnecessary, expensive, and counterproductive. The Biden administration called the payment freeze a “critical lifeline” that helped borrowers pay for basic necessities while preventing millions of delinquencies and defaults. But a new paper by economists at the University of Chicago suggests that the pause in student-loan payments caused borrowers to rack up more debt, not less. They found that the payment freeze did not affect delinquencies on other debts. Nor did the policy reduce loan balances—in fact, it did the opposite. By the end of 2022 beneficiaries of the moratorium accumulated an additional $2,500 in student-loan debt and an additional $2,000 in credit-card, mortgage and car-loan debt, boosting total household indebtedness by 8%. https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/06/01/the-moratorium-on-repaying-student-loans-in-america-was-a-bad-idea
Biden is avoiding serious fiscal reform. Two parts of America’s budget are most critical to defusing its fiscal problems. The first is its entitlement spending—notably, state-provided pensions and medical insurance for the elderly. These already account for nearly two-thirds of federal expenditures, and are set to expand as the population ages. . The other is tax revenues, with the American government taking in considerably less as a share of GDP than most other high-income countries… [But] Democrats worry about the electoral consequences of calling for higher taxes. [And the administration’s efforts to reform Medicare to cut costs fall way short of what’s needed – more on that later] https://www.economist.com/united-states/2023/06/01/america-avoids-financial-armageddon-but-stays-in-fiscal-hell
Biden’s Medicare Reforms are inadequate and partly counterproductive. Medicare spending per person has also grown from $5,800 in 2000 to $15,700 in 2022. Net Medicare outlays are projected to increase from $744 billion in 2022 to nearly $1.7 trillion in 2033. Most of this money (76%) is spent on managed care organizations, hospitals and physician services. Another 12% goes to prescription drugs. The Biden administration has proposed some cuts in Medicare spending…But these savings amount to just $24 billion a year over the next decade: clearly inadequate, considering that Medicare spending is projected to increase an average of nearly $100 billion a year over the same period. https://www.kff.org/interactive/the-facts-about-medicare-spending/
Besides, the administrations new rules for negotiating Medicare drug prices are ill-considered. The ban on negotiations was illogical, and allowing Medicare to bargain with drugmakers makes sense. Alas, the new rules are too heavy-handed, and could have damaging effects. A problem is that they have swung from one extreme to another. Officials will not so much be negotiating the price as setting it. The penalties for companies that do not comply with the negotiation process for a single drug are severe: they will either face an excise tax of 65-95% of the product’s sales in America, or have to withdraw all their medicines from public-health programmes altogether. It is like turning up to a fight where only one side has a gun. This is typical of the unintended and undesirable effects from price regulation…The new rules will have further perverse consequences… they allow a fixed term of unregulated pricing that begins with the first drug approval [which is a shorter period than prior regulations]. This encourages firms to seek treatments for the most lucrative diseases first. They may delay or entirely avoid expanding the drug’s use into diseases with fewer patients. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/08/30/americas-new-drug-pricing-rules-have-perverse-consequences
Biden is doing little to reduce the cost of servicing the federal debt, which skyrocketed with the surge of inflation and interest rates in 2021-2022. The Congressional Budget Office projects that debt interest costs alone will account for 38 percent of federal revenues by 2053, significantly exceeding the level of 10 percent recorded in 2022…by 2053 interest costs on the federal debt are projected to be nearly three times the amount the federal government has historically spent on R&D, infrastructure, and education combined. https://www.pgpf.org/blog/2023/02/interest-costs-on-the-national-debt-are-on-track-to-reach-a-record-high https://www.pgpf.org/analysis/2023/07/higher-interest-rates-will-raise-interest-costs-on-the-national-debt
During his first year in office, Biden was widely seen as pandering to the progressive wing of the party, both in rhetoric and legislation. Although Biden has shifted somewhat to the center since, we are still dealing with the consequences of his earlier statements and actions. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/07/14/the-democrats-need-to-wake-up-and-stop-pandering-to-their-extremes https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/547475-whats-really-behind-joe-bidens-far-left-swing/ https://millercenter.org/critical-view-bidens-first-year
Biden chose Kamala Harris as his VP…Don’t get me started…
None of this is to say I won’t vote for the man in 2024 (assuming Trump’s running against him).--
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Unhelpful responses to this list (shorthand version): it’s not that bad; it’s not his fault; Robots/AI will solve a lot of these problems; just raise taxes on the rich/corporations; Trump/the right-wing/conservatives/Republicans are way worse; so-and-so says it ain’t so; but what about all the things he gets right!?