President Joe Biden brought his “Lowering Costs for American Families” message to New Hampshire on Monday, with stops in Goffstown and Manchester.
What he didn’t bring, local Republicans said, was math.
“On the economy, nobody’s better off now in New Hampshire, except for a handful of really rich people under ‘Bidenomics,’ than they were under President Trump,” said New Hampshire GOP chairman Chris Ager during a press conference at The Pint Publik House in downtown Manchester on Monday morning.
The GOP’s message, brought by local business owners and four Republican candidates for Congress, was that “Bidenomics” has led to the inflation hurting Granite State families.
“If we had practiced balanced budgeting, or at least reduced our budget deficits, we would not have the escalation in inflation and prices that we have today,” said First Congressional District candidate Russell Prescott.
When Biden spoke to a small gathering of supporters at the YMCA Allard Center in Goffstown, he kept his comments brief (about 15 minutes) and largely avoided the topic of inflation. He focused instead on the financial benefits he said Americans are enjoying from federal spending programs like the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”). He also touted billions in new benefits to Medicare recipients, including a $2,000 cap on out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs.
And, Biden told the crowd, President Donald Trump wants to put entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security “on the chopping block.”
Biden read a quote from Trump’s CNBC appearance that morning, claiming, “Trump said cuts to Social Security and Medicare are on the table again.” Or rather, Biden attempted to read the quote. But after stumbling, halting, and apparently becoming confused, he abandoned the attempt.
“The bottom line is he’s still at it,” Biden concluded.
(The Trump campaign responded via X: “If you losers didn’t cut his answer short, you would know President Trump was talking about cutting waste.”)
Biden also repeated another traditional Democratic talking point: accusing wealthy Americans of not “paying their fair share.”
“Guess what? I’m a capitalist, man. Make all the money you want. Just begin to pay your fair share.”
In fact, the top 10 percent of income earners already pay about 76 percent of all the federal personal income taxes.
Earlier Monday, the Biden administration released its 2025 federal budget proposal, which would raise federal spending to $7.3 trillion — an 18 percent increase over just two years ago — and raise nearly $5 trillion in net tax increases over a decade.
Greg Moore, state director of Americans For Prosperity, laid the responsibility for higher prices at Biden’s feet.
“Joe Biden’s going to blame everybody but himself for the inflation,” Moore said at Monday’s presser. “Not signing the American Rescue Plan, which out of the gate took a $4 trillion [spending] base and added another $2 trillion in spending on top of it. Economists say that added three to five percent inflation by itself.
“And what is that inflation for an average family?” asked Moore. “They’re looking at increased costs of $11,400 a year.”
Roy Arsenault, owner of The Pint Publik House, said his business was struggling to keep prices low enough for customers to keep coming in the door.
“We’re here on Elm Street in Manchester, which is the largest city in the state, and we’re pretty much ground zero for most of the retail economy,” Arsenault said. “I speak with many other business owners downtown, and we all have the same problems. The costs of everything are just through the roof.”
Arsenault said talk of “three or four percent annualized inflation” is statistics, not real life for businessowners like him. “We can see our prices go up that much in a month.”
A new ABC News poll released Sunday found more Americans trust Trump on the economy (49-37 percent) and inflation (45-31 percent) than Biden.
Biden was whisked away by campaign staff minutes later after closing his remarks and visited a Democratic campaign office in Manchester. His convoy first had to pass by a set of dueling protesters — one side pro-Donald Trump, the other pro-Palestine — upon exiting the venue.
Upon arrival, Biden thanked New Hampshire Democrats for their write-in effort that brought 79,000 voters to the polls to write in his name.
“It stunned me,” Biden told the Democrats in the room, adding: “I was very careful not to be here.” At that mention of Biden’s months-long snub of the First in the Nation presidential primary, the room burst into laughter.
Ager called out Biden for his treatment of New Hampshire voters.
“I find it very ironic that President Biden skips the entire primary process when the nation’s looking at New Hampshire. Then he comes in the middle of a cold, windy day, and he hides from people. He didn’t even announce his schedule until early this morning. It’s almost like he doesn’t want anybody to know he’s here.”
At one point during the campaign HQ visit, Biden turned to his campaign handlers and asked, “Am I allowed to take any questions?”
A staffer could then be heard directing members of the press out of the room before the video feed abruptly ended.
