A plurality of Pennsylvanians and Americans rate the economy as the most important issue right now. As we approach the midterm elections, economic arguments are the focal points of most campaigns. In most years, this works to the detriment of the Democratic Party, but this year could be different.
Year after year, Republicans have demonstrated prowess in making arguments about the economy. With Democratic control of the White House and Congress, recent polling shows that Republicans are a trusted voice on the economy and inflation. And yet, the past two years of a Democratic Congress and president have seen incredible accomplishments – easing the burden of inflation, creating jobs, investing in communities, increasing access to health care, and restoring American manufacturing – all while Republicans stood in the way.
The report card of wins for working-class families shows strong marks for Democrats. In late 2021, President Biden and Congress enacted the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act – the largest investment in infrastructure in a generation. It includes $110 billion in funding to repair roads and bridges and support major projects that will keep Pennsylvanians employed for years in family-sustaining jobs. The plan upgrades airports and ports to reduce the delays that plagued the country last year and led to increased prices on many goods, particularly around the holidays. It also boasts the largest investment in Amtrak since the creation of the nationalized rail company, allowing Americans to travel to work without the need for a costly personal vehicle.
Not satisfied with that transformative success, the Biden administration then shepherded through the Inflation Reduction Act in August of 2022, a major investment on par with FDR’s New Deal that doesn’t raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 per year.
Some of the marquee accomplishments of the IRA include encouraging prevailing-wage agreements on projects, prioritizing the manufacture of American goods, bringing fairness to the tax code so that billionaires pay their share, funding clean-energy tax credits for projects that use good-paying union labor, and capping out-of-pocket costs for Medicare recipients (including a $35 cap on a month’s supply of insulin).
Every Republican in Congress voted no on these items. One would think that the party most trusted on the economy would have sought solutions to inflation – but they didn’t, and their negligence is not unique to Washington. Harrisburg Republicans also failed to shepherd economic remedies through state government, even while acknowledging global inflation.
This past summer, when gas prices were putting the brakes on travel plans, Democrats in Harrisburg proposed a gas-tax holiday to give folks a break from rising costs. The Republican-led state legislature held no hearings on the proposal and never scheduled the bill for a vote.
Acknowledging that the prices of goods, housing, and utilities are on the rise, it was Democrats who fought hard in the state capital to raise the minimum wage. Pennsylvania’s base rate is still $7.25 per hour and even lower for tipped workers. An increase would lead to an immediate raise for hundreds of thousands of Pennsylvanians as they struggle to pay their bills.
Republicans have failed to deliver on the economy but used their oppositional platform to score electoral victories. Democrats in Washington and Harrisburg have, meanwhile, listened to struggling families and led the way in easing their pain at the pump, at the grocery store, and at the pharmacy.
The problem with the Democratic Party, and ultimately its undoing in elections, is that it spends too much time working through policy and too little time demonstrating its strength on the economy. This misguided focus has cost the party before and may cost it again this year, unless voters remember the party’s actual record.