HAGERSTOWN, Md. — President Biden laced into Republicans on Friday for trying to enact policies that would make “every kitchen table cost” go up while lavishing tax cuts on big corporations, shedding his usual tone of bipartisanship a month ahead of the midterm elections.
In a speech before factory workers at a Volvo manufacturing facility, Mr. Biden defended his economic record and accused Republicans of political hypocrisy for seeking to reap the benefit of federal funds made available by legislation that they had opposed. He also laid out the stakes of the upcoming elections, bluntly warning that Republicans will try to scale back Medicare and Social Security benefits if they win control of Congress. And he accused Republicans of rooting against America’s economic success.
“This is a choice between two very different ways of looking at the economy,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Biden’s comments came as Labor Department figures showed that the United States economy added 263,000 jobs in September and that the unemployment rate fell to 3.5 percent, from 3.7 percent a month earlier. The report suggests that the labor market is cooling as the Federal Reserve raises interest rates but that the central bank will likely have to take further steps to slow the economy in order to tame inflation.
Mr. Biden said that the numbers were a sign that the economy was transitioning to stable growth.
“Our job market continues to show resilience as we navigate through this economic transition,” he said. “The pace of job growth is cooling while still powering our recovery forward.”
Despite concerns about an economic slowdown, Mr. Biden’s remarks were the latest attempt by the White House to highlight examples of America’s manufacturing resurgence with a focus on the automobile sector in the run-up to the November midterm elections.
The State of the 2022 Midterm Elections
With the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.
- Standing by Herschel Walker: After a report that the G.O.P. Senate candidate in Georgia paid for a girlfriend’s abortion in 2009, Republicans rallied behind him, fearing that a break with the former football star could hurt the party’s chances to take the Senate.
- Wisconsin Senate Race: Mandela Barnes, the Democratic candidate, is wobbling in his contest against Senator Ron Johnson, the Republican incumbent, as an onslaught of G.O.P. attack ads takes a toll.
- G.O.P. Senate Gains: After signs emerged that Republicans were making gains in the race for the Senate, the polling shift is now clear, writes Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst.
- Democrats’ Closing Argument: Buoyed by polls that show the end of Roe v. Wade has moved independent voters their way, vulnerable House Democrats have reoriented their campaigns around abortion rights in the final weeks before the election.
The Volvo facility in Hagerstown employs more than 1,700 workers and makes parts for Mack Trucks.
The visit also came with political calculations, as Representative David Trone, a Maryland Democrat, was locked in a tight re-election race with his Republican challenger, Neil Parrott. Hagerstown is also close to the border with Pennsylvania, where the senate and governor’s races are two of the most consequential political contests in the country.
Mr. Biden maintained a more pointed tone with Republicans as he made claims about the benefits of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act that Congress passed in August. He called out Republicans such as Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona and Representative Andy Barr of Kentucky for seeking federal funds for local projects while criticizing his agenda, calling it “socialism.”
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“I didn’t know there were that many socialist Republicans,” Mr. Biden joked.
Mr. Biden, who on Thursday evening attended a fund-raiser at the Manhattan home of the Democratic donor James Murdoch, said that Republicans have a “Park Avenue” view of the world that stands in stark contrast to his policies that are born out of concern for people in places like Scranton, Pa., where Mr. Biden was born, and Hagerstown.
Republicans seized on signs of a cooling job market to assail Mr. Biden for economic mismanagement on Friday.
“The economy is shrinking, inflation is raging, and job growth is slowing,” said Representative Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee.
While the White House has so far sounded very in line with the Fed’s push to fight the quickest inflation in four decades, that tone could shift somewhat as the economy begins to show cracks.
The Biden administration has made it clear that it respects the Fed’s independence to set policy free of partisan interference, but it might be challenging for administration officials to embrace the central bank’s actions too loudly when the Fed’s policies are hurting the economy and inflicting pain on workers.
Mr. Biden acknowledged that economic headwinds continued to persist, noting that gasoline prices are inching back up “because of what the Russians and the Saudis just did.”
“I’m not finished with that just yet,” he added.
Despite his sharper tone, Mr. Biden said that he remained hopeful that bipartisan cooperation could be possible after the election.
“That’s my hope, that after this election, there will be a little return to sanity,” Mr. Biden said. “That we’ll stop this bitterness that exists between the parties and have people working together.”
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
