That Other Bidenomics Disaster

President Joe Biden spent much of the first half of this year pursuing his top policy priority: preventing the new Republican House of Representatives from restraining the growth of federal spending. A new government report demonstrates that he largely succeeded. This “success” may be Mr. Biden’s most significant legacy and the principal reason that history will look unkindly on his term as president.

Of course the aspect of the Biden economy that plagues workers, savers and consumers today is inflation, which has also been inflamed by his reckless spending. A Journal editorial this week notes the destruction that this era’s inflation has wrought upon real wages.

Don’t expect the president to learn the lesson. He spent his “Bidenomics” speech in Chicago Wednesday celebrating all the big spending he enacted before voters gave Republicans the House. Mr. Biden also employed his standard canard that “our economy was reeling” when he took office, even though his own Commerce Department has once again affirmed today that the economy grew more than three times as fast in the first quarter of 2021 than in the first quarter of this year.

The bad news for the workers, savers and consumers of tomorrow is that despite GOP success in forcing a step toward fiscal sanity with the recent debt-ceiling deal, a new report from the Congressional Budget Office shows that Mr. Biden has largely succeeded in keeping the United States on the path to fiscal ruin.

CBO has released its latest long-term forecast, which includes the impact of the recent debt-ceiling deal. The new report makes clear that Mr. Biden, even when constrained a little by Congress, is ensuring an extremely difficult time for future generations of Americans. Congress’s official budget scorekeeper reports:

In CBO’s projections, the deficit equals 5.8 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, declines to 5.0 percent by 2027, and then grows in every year, reaching 10.0 percent of GDP in 2053. Over the past century, that level has been exceeded only during World War II and the coronavirus pandemic...

By the end of 2023, federal debt held by the public equals 98 percent of GDP. Debt then rises in relation to GDP: It surpasses its historical high in 2029, when it reaches 107 percent of GDP, and climbs to 181 percent of GDP by 2053. Such high and rising debt would slow economic growth, push up interest payments to foreign holders of U.S. debt, and pose significant risks to the fiscal and economic outlook...

Mr. Biden was especially effective—and especially irresponsible—in setting the table for this year’s spending debate by ruling out any reform of the major entitlement programs. This was not leadership. It was especially reckless given that the inflation he helped create has already been causing a surge in the cost of financing federal debt. CBO sketches out the challenges to come:

In 2023, outlays fall to 24.2 percent of GDP as federal spending in response to the pandemic diminishes. Outlays continue to decline through 2026 but increase thereafter, reaching 29.1 percent of GDP in 2053. (By comparison, from 1993 to 2022, outlays averaged 21.0 percent of GDP.) Rising interest rates and persistently large primary deficits cause interest costs to almost triple in relation to GDP between 2023 and 2053. Spending on the major health care programs and Social Security—driven by the aging of the population and growing health care costs—also boosts federal outlays significantly over the next 30 years.

America’s 46th president either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care about the unforgiving math that will be punishing Americans long after he leaves office. It’s critical that America’s 47th president prioritizes reform.

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Is 35 the New 70 in China?
Reading stories like this interesting piece in the New York Times,

When Sean Liang turned 30, he started thinking of the Curse of 35 — the widespread belief in China that white-collar workers like him confront unavoidable job insecurity after they hit that age. In the eyes of employers, the Curse goes, they’re more expensive than new graduates and not as willing to work overtime...

China’s postpandemic economic rebound has hit a wall, and the Curse of 35 has become the talk of the Chinese internet. It’s not clear how the phenomenon started, and it’s hard to know how much truth there is to it. But there’s no doubt that the job market is weak and that age discrimination, which is not against the law in China, is prevalent. That is a double whammy for workers in their mid-30s who are making big decisions about career, marriage and children.

“Too old to work at 35 and too young to retire at 60,” said a viral online post — meaning that people of prime working age lack prospects and older people may need to keep working as the government is considering raising the retirement age. The post goes on: “Stay away from homeownership, marriage, children, car ownership, traffic and drugs, and you’ll own happiness, freedom and time.”

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James Freeman is the co-author of “Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi” and also the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”

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(Lisa Rossi helps compile Best of the Web.)

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