The Trouble With Bidenomics

There is a strange phenomenon in Washington in which the closer the U.S. Treasury gets to a disastrous debt crisis, the more vigorously elected officials act to ensure that nothing is done to prevent it. Exhibit A is President Joe Biden’s signature 2023 policy success. Mr. Biden managed to run a nearly $2 trillion annual deficit in a time of low unemployment while simultaneously ruling out of polite Beltway conversation any reform of the major programs leading America toward financial ruin. He accomplished this feat as publicly held debt has swelled to roughly the size of our entire economy, not even counting all of Washington’s entitlement promises. Some may be concerned that the president just turned 81, but he’s got the unwisdom of a man one-fifth his age.

One tragedy of the president’s success—and he shares credit with a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Capitol Hill who regard modest efforts at spending restraint as chaotic assaults on the orderly functioning of society—is that reckless Biden fiscal policy hasn’t even allowed the instant gratification one would hope to enjoy from a credit-fueled spending binge.