From Reaganomics to Bidenomics

IN A speech in Chicago last Wednesday (June 28), US President Joe Biden used a term that has been employed by Republicans in the past to criticise his economic policies.

“I don’t know what the hell that is,” Biden said, referring to the term “Bidenomics”. “But it’s working,” he added, introducing his economic philosophy that centres on the role of an activist government in directing social-economic policies.

In a way, Bidenomics amounts to a rejection of the free market-oriented approach, also known as Reaganomics, launched by former Republican president Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. It was based on the notion that deregulation, privatisation, lowering taxes, cutting government spending, and promoting free trade would expand the economy with the benefits eventually “trickling down” to the American people, including the middle class.