So I listened to the David Dayen interview on Nick Hanauer’s Pitchfork Economics podcast. Hanauer said Biden is the most “consequential” President in 40 years! Dayden, executive editor of The American Prospect, explained how Biden is fighting corporate power with pro-competitive and anti-monopoly economic policies

Maybe I feel a little bad about my tweets to “Dear @POTUS,” exhorting him to “rein-in corporate power” and “cut the purse strings” and “make them hate you” and… more things like that. Apparently, President Joe Biden was already clipping the wings of Big Money with his “Middle-Out” economic policies.

“Organized money hates me—and I welcome their hatred!” — FDR

There are plenty of devoted Democrats who would claim Biden is a second FDR. I will never go that far. But I am now appreciating that not all his accomplishments are as “weak sauce” as I thought. Biden’s economic policies, perhaps his biggest accomplishment, are kind of hazy—because they are behind the scenes.

Biden has corralled his government agencies into a joint mission: to build more market competition. As they go about their business, from OTC hearing aids to a new flame retardant vendor, each agency contributes to President Biden’s Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy.

Biden’s competitive economy is a decisive shift away from trickle-down Reaganomics, and it should be far-reaching and long-lasting. Dayen compares the change to turning a battleship. It is ponderous and slow. It is also very hard to turn around, yet another time, for future administrations.

Runaway corporate power is a big problem in an economy that wants to build a middle-class. So it is very gratifying that someone is finally reining it in. It almost makes me want to see Joe Biden serve another term—to give him time to turn the battleship all the way around.

SOURCES

“A Pitched Battle on Corporate Power” | David Dayen, The American Prospect
“How Biden Is Restoring Economic Competition (with David Dayen)” | Pitchfork Economics

Friends in DC

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