Joe Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is apparently preparing to embark on a month-long tour to praise the economic policies of the Biden administration.
That will do little to reassure the millions of Americans who are still struggling to pay for food and fuel.
I did a double take when I saw this headline from Hans Nichols at Axios. I didn’t think it was real at first:
First look: Yellen kicks off month-long economic victory tourTreasury Secretary Janet Yellen will deliver a major economic speech in Detroit next week as part of a month-long push to sell President Biden’s signature legislative achievements before the midterms, Axios has learned.Why it matters: Deploying Yellen, an economist who has been reluctant to lend her name to arguments she doesn’t buy, is the administration’s attempt to seize on a spate of positive headlines and make a broader intellectual argument for Biden’s efforts to re-engineer large sections of the economy.
- Yellen will defend the administration’s March 2021 $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan — which Republicans blame for stoking inflation — as a key factor in preventing the economic recovery from stalling out during the pandemic.
- She will also focus on a trio of legislative accomplishments — with trillions in collective new spending for infrastructure, semiconductors and climate change — as critical to improving productivity and growing the economy from the middle class out.
The big picture: The post-COVID economy is sending a variety of contradictory messages, confounding economists and making Biden politically susceptible to negative economic data, headlines and perceptions.
The problem with this is that you can tell people about all the great things you’ve done for them until you’re blue in the face, but if they don’t see it in their day-to-day lives, it’s pointless.
I’m guessing that Yellen is doing this at the behest of the White House because they know inflation is still one of the top issues for the midterms.
From FOX Business:
Inflation drives voters to the polls in NovemberThe U.S. is just over two months away from the Midterm election and voters across the country are eager to get to the polls. Something that’s driving many voters – inflation.With control of the House and Senate up in the air, swing states like Pennsylvania are important for both parties.Bob Hamilton is a Republican and has lived in Pennsylvania his whole life. Hamilton says inflation is out of control.”How much more can we handle? I’m on social security, I’m on a fixed income,” said Hamilton.The economy is always a big issue for voters, but it’s all the more important this year as inflation hits its highest point in decades.”The prices of food, and restaurants, and so forth, day-to-day things, I think…people are feeling that pain,” said Duquesne University Political Science Department Chair Professor Clifford Bob.
Yellen’s speeches might drive a few minor news stories, but they will not convince voters that the economic pain they’re feeling isn’t real.
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