President Joe Biden's Cabinet will end a two-week tour on Thursday during which it touted the administration's economic achievements ahead of the Democratic incumbent's first debate against former President Donald Trump.
In the ten days leading as much as Thursday's debate, the White House organized 29 public events with greater than a dozen senior administration officials to advertise Biden's economic agenda, a White House official said in a memo announcing the blitz.
The events spanned 15 states, including key battlegrounds corresponding to Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Director of the National Economic Council Lael Brainard and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg participated within the roadshow together with 15 other cabinet members and senior government officials.
On Wednesday, domestic policy adviser Neera Tanden announced a brand new plan to temporarily reduce the out-of-pocket costs of some pharmaceuticals for seniors by penalizing pharmaceutical corporations that raise their drug prices faster than the speed of inflation.
“Seniors have been completely defenseless against price increases by pharmaceutical companies. That is over now,” said Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy adviser, within the press release.
Earlier this week, Yellen visited Minnesota to announce a brand new $100 million reasonably priced housing fund.
“Thanks to President Biden's economic plan, the American economy is strong and resilient and has experienced robust economic growth in recent quarters,” she said in a speech on Monday.
“The labor market is remarkably healthy, with low unemployment, rising real wages, and a larger share of Americans employed than before the pandemic.”
Throughout the tour, administration officials reinforced the economic arguments that Biden and his campaign have repeatedly made in recent months and which might be more likely to be raised again at Thursday's debate.
“The president has called on major corporations to pass on their savings to consumers, pushed through cost-cutting legislation in historic fashion, directed his Cabinet to use all means to cut costs, and eliminated hidden, unnecessary fees in nearly every area of the family budget,” Brainard said at an Urban Institute event.
The White House’s push to bolster voters’ economic pessimism and counter the Republican narrative about inflation – a persistent Weakness for Biden within the polls – fit well with the efforts of the Biden campaign.
But they differ in a single key respect: While White House officials spread the positive news and developments that they attribute to Biden's economic policies, they’re careful not to say Donald Trump or other Republican candidates by name.
The task of reminding voters how Biden differs from Trump is left to the campaign, which on Wednesday recent ad He contrasted their “competing economic visions” and accused the previous Republican president of not having a plan to “help working families.”
The goal of the tour is for officials to “demonstrate” Biden's economic agenda “as they have done throughout his administration,” White House spokesman Jeremy Edwards told CNBC.
Edwards compared the past two weeks to other economic stimulus blitzes the administration launched during Biden's first term.
“Since President Biden took office, the administration has continued to meet with people where they are to highlight the work we do on behalf of the American people,” Edwards said in a press release to CNBC.
In fact, Biden’s cabinet members began a very similar two-week roadshow in March following his State of the Union address.
The latest efforts to hype Biden’s economic successes come at a time when consumers Confidence has declined this monthsaid nonprofit economic research group The Conference Board. The index reading for June, released Tuesday, fell barely to 100.4 from 101.3 in May, suggesting households are feeling barely worse concerning the economy this month than last month.
The Labor Department is anticipated to release its weekly data on initial jobless claims on Thursday, hours before the talk. While the numbers are limited to only one week, they may provide a last-minute boost to Trump or Biden depending on the final result. An updated estimate of U.S. gross domestic product will even be released on Thursday.
The candidates' competing claims concerning the economic situation will face further scrutiny on Friday morning when the Federal Reserve releases May data on its preferred inflation measure: the private consumption expenditures (PCE) index.
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