Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell of Michigan claimed Thursday that members of her party weren’t giving President Joe Biden enough credit for “turning around” the U.S. economy.
Even though inflation was only 3.1% in December, prices have risen 17.2% since Biden took office in January 2021, and voters in the New Hampshire primary cited high food and gas prices as a major concern. Dingell chided Democrats in her state for taking credit for funds that Biden “made sure came here.”
“I think it’s incumbent upon all of us, that we are not doing a good enough job of ourselves giving credit to the president. I, in my own state, which is a Democratic state with a governor, who is one of my best friends, watch too many people take credit for money that came into this state that Joe Biden made sure came here,” Dingell told “Meet The Press Now” host Kristen Welker.
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“I tell this to all my colleagues, I tell this to my state legislators, I tell it to my mirrors, you need to give credit to where this money came from and they know it now,” Dingell continued. “Our state legislators aren’t going to get reelected if he doesn’t do well. So I think we all have to be all in and tell the story of how these investments he’s talking about today, how the economy is turning around after he took over this country during the COVID at a terrible time, and it’s incumbent on all of us to tell the story.”
Biden announced over $5 billion in new infrastructure projects during a Thursday speech in Wisconsin, where he touted the success of the bipartisan infrastructure law passed under his administration, according to UPI. Biden embraced the term “Bidenomics,” coined by the Wall Street Journal to describe his economic policies, during a June 2023 speech in Chicago.
Despite claiming the economy was strong and touting his economic record, Biden currently has a 37% approval rating on the economy compared to a 58.6% disapproval rate, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls between Nov. 29 and Jan. 23.
Only 34% of Americans said they were better off than they were four years ago in an I&I/TIPP poll released Jan. 4, while 58% said they were worse off.
