President Biden plans to tout his economic record and efforts to strengthen manufacturing in the United States when he visits Maine on Friday.
The White House on Sunday released some additional details about Biden’s trip, but did not disclose specifics about public appearances.
“The president will discuss how Bidenomics is driving a manufacturing boom and helping workers and innovators invent and make more in America,” the president’s weekly guidance to reporters stated.
It will be Biden’s first visit to Maine as president and comes as he is ramping up his campaign for reelection in November 2024.
Maine is considered a blue-leaning state, with Democrats in control of both legislative chambers and the Blaine House. But in 2020, one of Maine’s four electoral college votes went to former Republican President Donald Trump after he won the more conservative 2nd Congressional District. Biden won Maine’s 1st District and the statewide vote, earning him three of the state’s electoral college votes.
Gov. Janet Mills, whose approval rating stood at 55% in June, said in a statement Monday that she plans to join Biden when he visits Friday. Mills’ office referred a reporter to the White House for additional details.
The White House press office did not respond to requests for additional information.
Mills credited Biden’s leadership and “historic” federal investments in the state with helping Maine reach a record-setting low unemployment rate and a near-record high number of jobs and a gross domestic product growth rate that she said is one of the best in the nation.
“My guiding belief has always been that to grow our economy, we must invest in our greatest asset: our people – a belief I know the president shares,” Mills said. “I look forward to joining the president during his visit to Maine to talk about our great state and how his policies and the innovation, ingenuity, determination, and hard work of Maine people are building a stronger, more prosperous Maine.”
During her time in office, Mills has invested hundreds of millions of federal dollars into the Maine Jobs & Recovery Plan. Those investments were a centerpiece of her reelection campaign against former two-term Republican Gov. Paul LePage.
Mills easily won reelection last November, earning nearly 56% of the vote.
Mills also earmarked a record $400 million in the state’s two-year budget for transportation projects, which she hopes will help unlock over $1 billion in additional funding from Biden’s bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill, passed in late 2021.
The visit comes as Biden and Vice President Kamila Harris are fanning out across the country to make the case that their focus on strengthening the economy from the middle out and bottom up – a strategy that has been labeled Bidenomics – is exceeding expectations.
“A flurry of new reporting over the past few days has highlighted the growing momentum showing the American economy exceeding expectations because of the president’s plan to rebuild our economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down,” the White House said in a separate statement.
The approach is the antithesis to Reaganomics, also known as trickle-down economics, which calls for providing tax breaks to large corporations and the wealthy in the belief that will stimulate economic activity and growth that ultimately benefits middle- and low-income families. Critics have pointed to the nation’s widening wealth gap as proof the concept does not work.
The White House said the economy, under Biden, has added 13.2 million jobs, while the unemployment rate has remained under 4% for the longest stretch in more than 50 years, and the share of working-age Americans in the workforce is as high as it’s been in 20 years, it said. Inflation, meanwhile, has fallen to the lowest level in more than two years after spiking in 2021.
RISE IN MANUFACTURING
Maine’s manufacturing industry accounted for about 10%, or nearly $7.8 billion, of the state’s GDP in 2021, up from $5.4 billion in 2015. It also accounts for about 8.7%, or 53,000, of the state’s nonfarm employees, according to the National Association of Manufacturers. The average annual compensation in 2021 was nearly $75,000, well above the nonfarm average of $52,700.
The White House has been taking note of other Maine initiatives recently, including action on so-called junk fees, by limiting the fees landlords can charge for tenant screening.
Last Wednesday, Senate President Troy Jackson, D-Allagash, traveled to Washington, D.C., to participate in a child care forum.
Jackson’s bill to increase pay for child care workers and to increase subsidies for families seeking quality, affordable child care were among the state-level efforts to strengthen families that were celebrated by first lady Jill Biden, who framed child care as part of Bidenomics.
Last Friday, White House climate adviser Ali Zaidi joined Mills during a media event at Kennebec County Community College to celebrate the state’s achievement of installing 100,000 heat pumps two years ahead of schedule. Mills announced a new state goal of installing 175,000 additional heat pumps by 2027.
Mills has also made progress on other Biden priorities: student debt relief and free community college.
Jill Biden, a community college professor, visited Southern Maine Community College in April to highlight Maine’s free community college program, which costs about $15 million a year, and was extended for an additional two years in the current budget. Mills was unable to attend after testing positive for COVID-19.
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