U.S. President Joe Biden speaks in regards to the August U.S. jobs and employment report numbers within the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, September 1, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden will deliver a speech Thursday contrasting his “Bidenomics” domestic policies with what the White House has dubbed “MAGAnomics,” a reference in a speech Thursday because the two sides proceed to spar over the budget with a possible government shutdown on the horizon.
The economic address is available in the midst of a budget showdown in Congress where hardline Republicans within the House of Representatives are demanding cuts too big to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate.
Congress has just over two weeks to pass the twelve appropriations bills and get Biden’s signature. Failure to accomplish that by Sept. 30 would end in a government shutdown resulting in furloughed staff, agencies closed and plenty of essential programs placed in peril. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday criticized congressional Republicans for not reaching an agreement.
“The shutdown mustn’t occur,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is Congress’s job: To avoid a shutdown.”
It is the second spending standoff this yr. House Republicans within the spring refused to lift the debt ceiling without cost cutting concessions. The difficulty now could be the hardline House Freedom Caucus is trying to cut spending for the fiscal yr 2024 to $1.47 trillion, or about $120 billion under what Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to earlier this yr.
“We have already agreed,” Jean-Pierre said. “There was a bipartisan agreement on the best way to move forward with the budget that they voted on. A deal is a deal. They need to keep their word and so they should keep the federal government open.”
The MAGAnomics vision to be outlined by Biden relies off of the budget released in June by the Republican Study Committee, White House senior advisor Anita Dunn wrote in a memo ahead of the president’s speech. The core tenets of the Republican plan that the administration is attacking are cutting taxes for the wealthiest Americans and corporations, making cuts to social safety net programs like Social Security and Medicare and eliminating Medicare’s ability to barter drug prices in addition to the cap on insulin.
“While the Senate is advancing bipartisan bills consistent with the budget deal the president negotiated with Speaker McCarthy in June, House Republicans have chosen a really different path — maintaining a series of reckless, partisan bills that will gut programs thousands and thousands of hardworking families count on,” Dunn wrote.
Biden in his speech will argue how lots of the provisions are unpopular with on a regular basis Americans.
“House Republicans have understandably been reluctant to tout the MAGAnomics budget — however the White Home is going to spend much of this fall doing it for them,” Dunn wrote. “[Biden] will use today’s speech to carry House Republicans accountable for the total MAGAnomics agenda and contrast MAGAnomics together with his economic vision.”
