EDITORIAL: The Big Guy ready to take responsibility for economy

John F. Kennedy had “Profiles in Courage.” Harry S. Truman had “The buck stops here.” Joe Biden, has “Who, me?”

For the past two years, the president has quickly and eagerly pointed the finger at a slew of scapegoats to deflect responsibility for a sputtering economy. Inflation, high gasoline prices, the soaring national debt, negative growth — these had nothing to do with the man in the Oval Office and were instead the fault of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the pandemic, supply chain snags, nefarious corporate price gouging or terrorists masquerading as MAGA Republicans.

Poor Joe Biden was just a victim of circumstance.

But now, as national economic numbers remain solidly mediocre, yet not as poor as many observers anticipated, the courageous Mr. Biden is finally prepared to stand at the podium and “take full political ownership of the U.S. economy,” the Associated Press reports. This is part of a re-election strategy that can be summed up with the slogan, “Hey, we haven’t gone into recession yet!”

“In a Chicago speech on Wednesday,” the wire service reports, Mr. Biden “will begin a new effort to actively convince a worried public that the U.S. economy is not heading for recession but actually thriving because of his leadership.”

Yet this strategy has one major flaw. Americans on the ground aren’t buying. Though inflation has slowed, it remains twice the rate the president inherited, and the exorbitant cost of many staples is noticeable during a trip down any grocery store aisle. Gasoline prices have been above $4 a gallon in many places — including Nevada — for the greater part of two years.

Reuters reports that Mr. Biden’s approval rating hovers around 40 percent. The economy continues to be the top issue of concern to Americans, yet only 33 percent of those surveyed approve of the president’s performance in that area, the AP reported, and only 24 percent describe the economy as being in good shape.

This is all of Mr. Biden’s own making. He and congressional Democrats triggered the highest inflation in four decades by ramping up the printing presses and passing trillions in new spending as the nation was coming out of COVID lockdowns. The president has surrounded himself with economic advisers who scorn the value of private markets yet take to the hymnals to tout government “industrial policy,” aka bureaucratic central planning.

Even the somewhat bipartisan infrastructure spending bill hasn’t produced much of value in large part because members of the president’s own party stand ready to red-tape most such projects into the next half-century.

It’s encouraging that Mr. Biden now wants “ownership” of his own creation. What statesmanship. Moderate and independent voters should take note.

This editorial was originally published in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.