Biden’s economy has led to a ‘resilient and equitable recovery’: Senior Biden adviser
Senior adviser to President Biden Gene Sperling joins ‘The Story’ to discuss how Americans feel about the economy and President Biden’s high-stakes State of the Union Address Thursday night.
As President Biden continues to receive criticism over inflation, record-high commodity costs and a spending habit one op-ed recently compared to Franklin Roosevelt's, a top White House adviser countered that America is in a much better place than when his boss took office.
Gene Sperling, a top Biden economic adviser who also served in the Obama and Clinton administrations, said the incumbent will dismantle all such claims in his State of the Union by "reminding people where we started… in a very, very bad place."
Sperling said former President Trump oversaw more job losses than any contemporary president since Depression-era Republican Herbert Hoover and that the Democrat's "middle-out, bottom-up economics" and public investments have led to a "resilient and equitable [economic] recovery."
After Trump dismissed Biden's attacks on "shrinkflation" as a subtle corporate money grab — saying instead "it was all caused by Crooked Joe Biden" and people who "don't know what they're doing" — Sperling said Biden was left with "very shaky prospects for United States in January 2021."
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New York Democrat Franklin Roosevelt, 32nd president. (AP, File)
On "The Story," anchor Martha MacCallum further challenged Sperling that public sentiment reflects the assertion Biden deserves criticism for his economic policies, citing a recent column by Wall Street Journal opinion columnist Daniel Henninger, who evoked another Democrat accused of profligate spending.
"The Biden presidency has dedicated trillions to infrastructure, climate projects, schools, welfare, pandemic support, student debt. In short, the second coming of Franklin Delano Roosevelt," Henninger wrote.
"It'd be one thing if people said that all this had helped, but hurt?"
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MacCallum cited polls she characterized as showing public sentiment agreeing Biden polices have "hurt them."
However, Sperling countered by attesting there are "indisputable facts" that unemployment remained below 4% two years in a row for the first time in 50 years, and that "real wages" are reportedly above the inflation rate.
"[L]et me make two very important points: One, you are seeing some signs in the polls of people appreciating the economy more… [And] a PNC poll of small businesses found eight out of 10 feeling good about their companies' prospects."
In response, MacCallum pointed to a consumer sentiment chart showing an "understandable" drop during the pandemic, but indications of public frustration continuing despite, as the anchor put it, Biden "having had three years to pull us out of the hole."
She also pointed to recent flashpoints including a social media user whose $22 meal receipt at Five Guys went viral.
Sperling said Biden is therefore planning to make the point during the State of the Union that he, not the GOP, is focusing on lowering costs by attacking shrinkflation, alleged price-gouging and "big banks" over their fee structures.
"[The] choice is between… someone who's moved the economy in the right direction but understands things are not good enough and has an all-out agenda to take on powerful interests to lower costs, [and] people who are going to be for tax cuts for the well-off and be afraid to take on powerful interests… " Sperling said.
As for Team Biden attacking Trump via comparisons to Hoover, CNN commentator Margaret Hoover — the late president's great-granddaughter — responded to a recent name-drop by asking, "Will Democrats just bury the 90-year-old talking point… and recognize the Great Depression was a unique event in American history?"
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