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President Biden Touts Economic Policies. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired June 28, 2023 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[13:00:10]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today, new data on the big money in the 2024 race. Campaigns and outside groups have spent a combined $70 million. And it's only 2023. Three candidates, Trump, DeSantis and Scott, account for more than half of it.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now. Thanks for watching.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: We're joining live comments now, President Biden in Chicago making his economic pitch to voters as the 2024 election campaign kicks in.

Let's listen in.

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: He put her on the court for me. Dick, you really are the best, man.

And, by the way, when I have questions about just about anything at all beyond the Judiciary Committee, I still call him anyway for his advice. So thank you.

And, Representative Danny Davis, Danny, you have been a good friend for a long time.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: He's always there.

And to all the elected officials, member of Congress, elected officials here today, thank you. Thank you for the welcome and welcoming me to Chicago.

The first quarter of the 20th century, the poet Carl Sandburg described Chicago as a city of big shoulders, a city of big shoulders. He was describing the big shoulders of a working-class American town who were building this city, same time building the middle class.

I'm here in Chicago today for the first quarter of the 21st century to talk about the economic vision for this country, the economy that grows the economy from the middle out and the bottom up, instead of just the top down. When that happens, everybody does well. The wealthy still do -- everybody does well.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: The poor have a ladder up, and the wealthy still do well. We all do well.

This vision is a fundamental break from the economic theory that has failed America's middle class for decades now. It's called trickle- down economics, fundamental economics, trickle down. The idea was, it's believed that we should cut taxes for the wealthy and big corporations.

And I know something about big corporations. There's more corporations in Delaware incorporated than every other state in the union combined. I want them to do well, but I'm tired of waiting for the trickle down. It doesn't come very quickly. Not much trickled down at my dad's kitchen table growing up.

And it's a belief that we should shrink public investment in infrastructure and public education, shrink it, that we should let good jobs get shipped overseas, and we actually have a tax policy that encourages them to go overseas to save money. We should let big corporations amass more power, while making it harder to join a union.

I meant what I said when I said I'm going to be the most pro-union president in American history, and I make no apologies for it.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: My predecessor, if my mom were here, God bless his soul, my predecessor enacted the latest iteration of the failed theory, tax cuts for the wealthy.

It wasn't paid for, and the estimated cost of his tax cut was $2 trillion, $2 trillion. Now Republicans are at it again, pushing tax cuts for large corporations and the wealthy and adding trillions of dollars to the deficit, trillions.

Folks, let me say this as clearly as I can. the trickle-down approach failed the middle class. It failed America. It blew up the deficit. It increased inequity and it weakened our infrastructure. It stripped the dignity, pride, and hope out of communities one after another, particularly through the Midwest, Western Pennsylvania and West.

People working as hard as ever couldn't get ahead, because it's harder to buy a home, pay for college education, start a business, retire with dignity, the first time in a generation the path of the middle class seemed out of reach. I don't think it's hyperbole. I think it's a fact, no matter whether you're a Democrat, Republican or independent.

I knew we couldn't go back to the same failed policies when I ran. So, I came in office determined to change the economic direction of this country, to move from trickle-down economics to what everyone on "Wall Street Journal" and "Financial Times" began to call Bidenomics. I didn't come up with the name.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: I really didn't. I now claim it, but they're the ones that used it first. I got asked by a press person this morning getting on a helicopter in Washington, why when I asked about Bidenomics a long time ago, you said you didn't know what it was.

I didn't name it Bidenomics. I didn't realize the economist in "The Wall Street Journal" did. But I think it's a plan that I will -- I'm happy to call Bidenomics.

[13:05:05]

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: And guess what? Bidenomics is working.

When I took office, the pandemic was raging and our economy was reeling. Supply chains were broken, millions of people unemployed, hundreds of thousands of small businesses on the verge of closing after so many had already closed, literally hundreds of thousands on the verge of closing.

Today, the U.S. has the highest economic growth rate, leading the world economy since the pandemic, the highest in the world.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: As Dick said, with his help, 13.4 million new jobs, more jobs in two years than any president has ever made in four, in two.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: And, folks, it's no accident. That's Bidenomics in action.

Bidenomics is about building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down. And there are three fundamental changes that we decided to make with the help of Congress and been able to do it, first, making smart investments in America, second, educating and empowering American workers to grow the middle class, and, third, promoting competition to lower costs to help small businesses.

Here's what I mean by all this. Under trickle-down economics, it didn't matter whether you made things, as long as you helped the company's bottom line, even if that meant seeing jobs and industries go overseas for cheaper labor, supply chains and key products moved overseas, like China and much of Asia.

The entire towns and communities from where I live all the way out there and through the Midwest were shut down, hollowed out, I mean literally hollowed out. All over the country, parents have to say -- and many of you, all elected officials, heard people tell you this, had to say to their children, honey, I lost my job. We can't live here anymore. We got to move.

Trickle-down also meant slashing public investment on things that help drive long-term growth and help America lead the world in innovation. We used to invest 2 percent of our gross domestic product in research and development. By the time I came to office, that was down to 0.7 percent.

We used to be number one in the world in research and development. That's what we were known for. Now we rank number nine in the world. China decades ago was number eight in the world. Now it's number two in the world, and other nations are closing in fast.

We used to have the best infrastructure in the world, roads, bridges, et cetera. But then we fell to rated 13th best investment in infrastructure, two to 13. How can you have the best economy in the world without the best infrastructure in the world? How do you get product from one place to another?

I was out in Pittsburgh recently, the City of Bridges. Bridges collapsing all over the nation. You have seen on television railroad bridges collapsing. Bidenomics, we're turning this around. We're supporting targeted investments. We're strengthening America's economic security, our national security, our energy security, and our climate security.

I designed and we signed a bipartisan infrastructure law. It's already announced. I heard some of the speakers before touting some of it. It's already announced 35,000 projects across the country. Think of it this way.

Nearly a century ago, Franklin Roosevelt's Rural Electrification Act, Rural Electrification, brought electricity to millions of Americans in rural America. Seventy years ago, Dwight Eisenhower launched the Interstate Highway System, the largest infrastructure project to date

in history.

That's what the bipartisan infrastructure law does. It will be for our kids and grandkids, only bigger. Just last week, we announced our plan to bring affordable high-speed Internet to end a decade of unaffordable and inaccessible Internet to every home in America, every small business in America.

And to no one's surprise...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: And to no one's surprise, it's bringing along some converts.

People strenuously opposed, voting against it when we had this going on. They were: This was going to bankrupt America.

Well, there's a guy named Tuberville from -- senator from Alabama, who announced that he strongly opposed the legislation. Now he's hailing its passage. Here's what said -- quote -- "It's great to see Alabama receive critical funds to boost ongoing broadband efforts."

(LAUGHTER)

(APPLAUSE)

[13:10:00]

BIDEN: We're replacing every single lead pipe in this country and putting our health -- our children's health back directly, 400,000 schools, 10 million homes. We're fixing crumbling bridges, upgrading our power grid, renovating

our airports and ports. And, Dick or one of you talked about that, how important that is for the Great Lakes as well.

Last week, we reopened I-95,back where I live, and you go up the East Coast. It's one of the most important links in the entire East Coast. Well, guess what? Less than -- a guy driving a truck hit a -- anyway, he knocked down a whole bridge and the whole four lanes of the highway.

I went up there, and I said, we're going to get this -- the number one project and get it done. Within one week of my being there, two weeks of it happening, tanker trucks that crashed and caused this overpass that has 150,000 vehicles travel on it every day and 14,000 trucks -- it's critical to our economy. We did it with union workers. We closed all the loopholes.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: We used all American products, all American materials. We used federal infrastructure projects. Made in America. Made in America. Not a slogan. It's actually happening.

You know, when Roosevelt passed the legislation in the '30s about unions being able to be engaged, everything thinks you just legalize unions. They said we should encourage unions. There was a little provision there that very few presidents paid attention to. It said buy American.

That meant that, if a president was given money by the Congress to build, say, new deck on an aircraft carrier, whatever it was, he or she was supposed to use 100 percent American labor and 100 percent American products. It hardly happened. They got exceptions down to 30 percent, et cetera.

I changed all that. We're now investing in key industries of the future, making targeted investments to promote domestic production of semiconductors, batteries, electric cars, clean energy. Under the trickle-down economic theory was that public investment would discourage private investment.

Give me a break.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: We went to see a whole lot of major corporations that said, are you more or less likely to invest if the government invests? Overwhelmingly -- they had it backwards. They said, no, we're more likely to invest if the government invests.

Public investment declined here at home. Industries that we invented started to move overseas, like semiconductors. I want to remind you America invented these chips, small computer chips the size of the tip of your finger that affect nearly everything in your life, from whether your cell phone functions, your automobiles can be built, refrigerators work. It goes on and on, into sophisticated weapons systems. It's all in

that little chip. Without that computer chip, we got a real problem. But, over time, we went from producing 40 percent of those world chips down to 10 percent.

Not anymore. Biden economics means the industries of the future are going to grow right here at home. At home.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: I mean it. Not a joke.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Under Bidenomics, we have already had over $490 billion in private investment commitments, $490 billion, from U.S. companies and companies around the world coming to the United States of America.

Working with our global partners, Americans' investments in clean energy technology are going to reduce carbon emissions, continue to lower the cost of wind. You talked about the wind farms you're talking about. It's already cheaper. Wind and solar are already significantly cheaper than coal and oil.

You're not going to see anybody building a new coal-fired plant in America, not just because I'd like to pass a law to say that. It's too expensive. It doesn't work anymore. Solar power is not just here, but around the world, and we used to be the center of building these solar panels.

We're coming back and doing it again. America's going to lead again.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Look, it is a win for the United States and a win for the world that builds on my decision to rejoin the Paris climate agreement on the first day I came to office.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: First day.

And, by the way, my predecessor talked a lot about increasing manufacturing. Remember infrastructure week?

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: Infrastructure week became infrastructure week and week and week and week and week. It never happened.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: We got infrastructure decade done right off the bat.

(APPLAUSE)

[13:15:00]

But, in reality, construction of manufacturing facilities here on U.S. soil were growing 2 percent on my predecessor's watch, in four years, 2 percent. On my watch, it's grown nearly 100 percent in two years, 100 percent.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: With the help of all the members of Congress that are here. And I'm not being solicitous.

Look, Weirton, West Virginia, used to -- where a steel mill closed in the beginning of this century in 2001 or '2, in that range. It employed thousands. It had thousands of good-paying jobs that were lost.

But, today, with the help of the Inflection Reduction Act -- Inflation Reduction Act, the new plant's being built, building iron air batteries, which are going to help store energy. And these batteries are going to help store energy, and it's being built on the same exact site, bringing back 750 good-paying jobs, bringing back a sense of pride and hope for the future for all the people of Weirton and surrounding areas.

I believe every American willing to work hard should be able to say where they grew up and stay where they grew up. That's Bidenomics. You know, my dad used to have an expression: "Joey" -- and I give my word, as awe say.

My dad was a well-read guy, never got to go to college, and a hardworking gentleman. We had dinner at -- where we incidentally had conversation and incidentally ate. My dad used to say: "Remember, a job's about a lot more than a paycheck."

Now, I mean this. I give you my word. He would say: "A job's about a lot more than a paycheck, Joey. It's about your dignity. It's about pride."

It's about being able to look your kid in the eye and say, honey, it's going to be OK. Think about it, I mean, in the literal sense. Think about that. It's about your dignity, how you're treated, and being able to make a living you can tell your kids is going to be OK.

The second big part of Bidenomics is empowering American workers. When I took office, unemployment was over 6 percent. With the American Rescue Plan, we provided relief and support directly to working-class families. Our economy came roaring back. Unemployment dipped below 4 percent by the end of my first year in office. Now it's been below 4 percent for the longest stretch in 50 years of American history.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Now, I must admit, I have concentrated now, but we have seen, with the help of Jesse Jackson's legacy and a lot of other people here, we have seen record low unemployment for African-Americans, record low unemployment for African-Americans and Hispanic workers with disabilities, the lowest unemployment rate in 70 years for American women.

And you make up half the economy and probably two-thirds of the brains.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: No, really, think about it.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: To pause for a second, when I was trying to get -- name me a time when you thought any Democrat would get the endorsement of every -- and within a week, every single environmental group out there, the AFL-CIO, the women's groups.

I mean, here's the deal. When I sat with the AFL-CIO, when I sat with the IBEW, starting when I ran last time, I said, here's the deal, though. I'm going to be the most pro-American, most pro-union president in history, but you have got to employ more women. You have got to attract more African-Americans, and you have got to attract more minorities.

They have. They're going around.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: It's beginning to change.

And every industry from -- anyway, I will go to these sites where they're training. By the way, the other thing I have told labor guys, you got to brag a little bit more about what you do. You realize, to get a license to be an electrician in this town or any other, you got to essentially go to four years of college?

You have to go through an apprenticeship that takes you four years to five, depending, or you can't get a job. You get paid a little bit, but you can't get your license to be an electrician, a labor electrician, until that happens.

Look, pay for low-wage workers has grown at the fastest pace in over two decades. Full employment means workers, especially low-wage workers, having more bargaining power to demand good pay, to secure good jobs. And this is the thing that is inconsistent with whether people think we're moving in the right direction.

Job satisfaction, based on every poll, is at a 36-year high. More people are satisfied with their jobs than any time in 36 years, and the shame of working-age Americans in the work force -- the share of them, the share of them is the highest it's been in 20 years.

Remember what they were saying? Biden policy isn't working. He's just paying people not to work, people on the sidelines. Well, guess what? Every single day in four years before I took office, you may remember, I took a lot of criticism in my presidency, Republican charging me, we're encouraging people to stay home, not work.

[13:20:14]

Well, they were wrong. The evidence is clear. Americans are back to work. They're back from the sidelines. And they want to come back. We're going to continue this progress and make sure every American has the training and education to participate in this new economy.

We have increased Pell Grants, made landmark investments in historic black universities. We have invested more in registered apprenticeships and center -- and career technology education programs than any previous administration in American history.

Because of this new economy, we don't need everyone to have a four- year degree. It's great if you can get one. And we're trying to make it easy for you to get one, but you don't need it to get a good-paying job anymore.

Think of this, how many of you remember going back to high school, and they had shop class, and they had classes where people could learn if they were interested in working with their hands? They don't have them very much anymore anywhere around the country.

Well, my wife teaches at a community college full-time still. She has an expression. She said, any country that outcompetes us, that out -- excuse me -- that outeducates us will outcompete us.

We're not going to let that happen. That's why we're investing significantly in education. I'm determined to keep fighting for universal pre-K and free community college. We're also fighting to make...

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: We're also fighting to make childcare more affordable, because we know one benefit is that it opens up significant opportunities for parents to be able to go back and join the work force.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: We're also making it easier to empower workers by making it easier to join a union.

As I have said, I promised to be the most pro-union president in history. And I tell business leaders all the time, our union workers are the best in the world. It takes four to five years in that apprenticeship. It's like going to college.

They will do the right job on time. Long-term cost for business is less. I'm addressing the four-year decline in unionization by supporting project labor agreements, collective bargaining, prevailing wage laws. That's the reason today American support of unions is higher than it's been in 60 years, 60 years.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: And, by the way, I met with the Business Roundtable and others. And they said, why am I so pro-union? I said, because it helps you. It really does. Think about it. The total cost of a major project goes down when you have the best workers in the world doing it. Not a joke. It's true. It lasts longer. You don't have to worry about whether that socket's going to work.

Look, young people are organizing new companies and industries. You know, I have indicated labor -- to labor leaders they must expand their ranks, as I said, more women, more minority minorities. That's what they have got to do.

The third part of Biden economics is promoting competition, because when companies have to compete on a level playing field, they have to work harder to attract customers and recruit and retrain workers. Some of you businesspeople in here know that well.

But under the trickle-down economic theory, three-quarters of U.S. industries grew more consecrated -- I mean, excuse me -- consecrated.

I'm thinking I didn't go to mass.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: They were moving to diminish competition.

Well, that may have been things -- made things easier for big corporations, but for everybody else, it made it harder and more expensive. It got harder for businesses, small businesses to compete. It stifled integration. It reduced wages for workers. And it made our supply chains more vulnerable.

So, folks, that's been the Republican plan so far, good for big business, bad for everyone else. It's not even that good for big business anymore. When I came to office with a very different plan, a limited concentration of power at the expense of consumers. The cops are back on the beat enforcing antitrust laws.

My administration is working to crack down on what we used to call noncompete agreements. We still call them that. These prevent 30 million Americans, from security guards to retail workers, from walking across the street to the same kind of business and getting a higher pay, getting $5 more a week or $10 more a week.

Noncompete agreements? It's one thing to have noncompete agreements you're dealing with trade secrets. It's another thing when you're doing the same thing of flipping a hamburger, and then you get 5 cents more by walking across the street to a different place.

We also have been promoting and we're supporting small businesses. Vice President Harris has prioritized providing support and capital for small business owners, including for rural minorities and women entrepreneurs, including through a brand-new program that's already helping deliver billions of dollars in growth capital to small businesses in every state.

[13:25:14]

We have seen a record 10.5 million applications, 10.5 million applications, of folks looking to start a small business just in the last two years, 10.5. Every one of those applications is an application of hope, hope.

Competition also means lowering costs for consumers. Bringing down inflation remains one of my top priorities. Today, inflation is less than half -- less than half of what it was a year ago, and then inflation caused by Russia and by the war in Ukraine and by what was going on.

But we knew we had to do more. There's more than one way to bring down costs. Another expression my dad used to use for real, he'd say, "Joey" -- he said: "At the end of the month, the question is, after you pay all your bills, do you have just a little left for breathing room? Just a little left for breathing room? All your bills paid, do you have anything left?"

Well, inflation eats into that, obviously. But guess what? Bringing down the cost of medication goes a long way to giving you a little more. That's why, through the Inflation Reduction Act, we finally gave Medicare the power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices like, the VA does now.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: We have been trying to get this done, Dick and I, for decades in the Senate. This time, we finally beat big pharma, for the first time.

You know...

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: You know, same drug made by the same American company sold in Chicago is more expensive than that same drug sold in Toronto, Great Britain, France, Germany, any -- any city you can name, for real.

Now seniors on Medicare are paying as much as $400 less -- who are paying $400 a month for insulin last year are now paying $35 a month.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: Because guess what? You know how much it cost to make that insulin? Ten -- T-E-N -- dollars. Package it, maybe $12 total. And the guy who invented the insulin didn't even ask for a patent, because he wanted everybody to have access to it.

We're just finishing the first round of negotiating drug prices. And we will save the taxpayers this year $160 billion.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: That's like a tax cut. Lowers the cost of prescription drugs and it lowers the federal

deficit as well. We're expanding health care coverage for more Americans, building on Barack's Affordable Care Act. You know why we're doing that?

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: I'm proud to strengthen that act, saving average families $800 a year on their health care premiums.

We're also fighting then junk fees. Most people don't think of it that, well, here's what a junk fee is. They can add up to $100 a month -- hundreds of dollars a month for a family, like that extra fee when you say, I want my child to sit next to me when I take them to see grandpop on the West Coast.

It's not listed now. They're listing it now. Hotel resort fees. You don't realize, you're not told they're going to be -- you know that ad on television? Mine is $200. His is $180. Well, guess what? Or the one that bothered me the most is overdraft fees for banks.

The banks made $7.7 billion a year on overdraft fees. You overdraft a check, you get a penalty. It's one of the leading bank presidents -- God love him, he's passed away -- but he had a yacht. The name of the yacht was Overdraft.

(LAUGHTER)

BIDEN: Swear to God.

Well, guess what? There are going to be no more overdraft fees. Folks...

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: We're doing all this, doing all this and reducing the deficit at the same time.

Just in my first two years in office, my team and I have reduced the deficit by $1.7 trillion, more than any president has, just in two years.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: And the budget agreement I negotiated, without having to give away anything of consequence, reduced the deficit by another trillion dollars.

You know, reversing 40 years of Republican trickle-down economics that helped few, but hurt the middle class, it's going to take some time,. But we're -- but we're in a place where some big pieces -- and we're moving in a direction where we can get some more done, and people will see it.

What I'm doing -- and I knew I'd have to do this -- all those major legislations we passed, people go, that's great, but then it takes time to get it out in the field. It takes time for them to see it.