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Doubt it is effectively right around the forty thousand level after it hit it yesterday, dropped briefly below where at thirty nine something. Now the stock market could be there and voter opinion about the economy could be so significantly.
Lower than that, and we hear, you know, we know the deal here of the stock market is not the economy, right, so they say, But there's also a wealth effect that tends to move throughout the economy when stocks are doing well, that can cause companies to hire up, increase wages, and maybe help people downstream. It does sound like trickle down,
I guess when you refer to it that way. But there's more at play here, and there's obviously a great story to tell for well, Joe Biden maybe, But then it brings us right back to this story from Bloomberg Economics today. We're just talking about it earlier Stuart Paul and his colleagues crafting a great piece of work here. That's part history lesson. I was just talking to Kaylee. I don't I don't know that I could have told you unemployment hit fourteen point eight percent in April twenty
I just we lived through it. But it still looks like a typo when I see it. And Stuart writes here, the cumulative increase in consumer prices during Joe Biden's term likely will end up being higher than any other president in the past forty years. That's what we're talking about here, indeed, and Stuart joins us from World Headquarters in New York. It's great to see you, sir, a great work and
glad to have you. A lot of folks are asking why the president cannot connect the dots, and it seems that you just did.
Yeah.
It's interesting in poll after poll, especially in the swing States, if you ask, if you ask registered voters who they trust to shepherd the economy along if former President Trump whens in a landslide, it's about a ten to fifteen percentage point difference between president's Biden and Trump when you ask voters who they trust to shepherd the economy, and for some who are just looking at some of the headline economic figures, cumulative growth under President Biden is going
to be about eleven percent through this term, right, and that smashes what Donald Trump had at just seven point four percent. To your point, it really is the cumulative inflation throughout President Biden's term, which is downstream of the reopening of the economy. A lot of stimulus that had been in the pipeline ends supply chain snaffoos, which are
pretty far outside of his control. But if we end his term, if we end this term with the cell side forecast coming to fruition, it'll be cumulative inflation of about twenty one percent during President Biden's term. That compares to Donald Trump's just eight percent into historic average between Presidents Truman and Obama of about fifteen point one percent per four year period. So that's what's really resting on voters.
That's what's on their minds right now. And in terms of what it means for the change in the typical voters lifestyle, we tend to focus on real disposable income growth, even though there's been such robust GDP growth during the Biden administration. During this term, cumulative real disposable income growth per person is likely to have just increased two point nine percent when voters go to the polls. That compares
to twelve point four percent under Trump. So it's really no wonder that voters are looking to Trump as a better steward of the economy.
Well in Stuart, Also, when we're considering the much more elevated levels of inflation we have seen during the Biden years, often what we hear from critics of this administration is because of that fiscal policy, all of that spending, all of that money getting dumped into the economy, that's what fueled inflation. Forget about anything on the supply side. But you guys point out in this piece how it wasn't
just Biden that was sending out stimulus checks. Those happened during the Trump administration as well as massive tax cut and that those things, together with moves under the administration, are likely what contributed to this inflation. How many years back do we need to look to understand the dynamics of what was driving prices higher, say in twenty twenty two.
That's a great point, Kaylee. You know, folks tend to give the current administration far too much credit and far too much blame for what happens under their watch. Yeah, to any extent that the Trump era tax cuts allowed people to allowed people and companies to fortify their balance sheets and pile up cash that would then be that would then be sent out in a sort of rebuilding phase as the economy reopened. Undoubtedly that contributed. Similarly, the
Trump administration distributed two stimulus checks. Biden it distributed one check early on in his term. And when those checks from President Trump were distributed, the economy was largely shut down to try to try to prevent the spread of COVID nineteen. So when there was that reopening, households were flush with cash. Similarly, households had the ability to refinance
and at rock bottom rates. And so that's not anything really to do with the presidential administration, but it's the sort of thing that has a long lag in how in how it creates a buffer that wraps around the economy that can extend pretty far into the future, and we're seeing the effects of that with persistent inflation right now.
Indeed, we are stort pall of Bloomberg Economics. Thank you so much for joining us. It's a great piece. You can check it out on the Bloomberg terminal as well as online. It literally, point by point show goes through different data points in the economy what they looked like under the prior administration and the current one and one thing we didn't talk about was mortgage rates as well under Biden. How much how much higher they are And boy, dona want to be homeowners like me?
Know it?
Well, that's a huge part of this. I mean, the home ownership is further out of grasp for young people than it was under Trump, and that is a big sticking point in this story.
Yeah, and of course we're continually hearing that because of the high rates that might be something that is actually fueling inflation now because it's keeping mortgage rates higher, people can't afford to buy, so they're renting.
Rental prices go up and there you have that shelter input.
So imagine a world in which we need to cut rates to fight inflation.
That's what kind of where we are is arguing today. David Weston spoke with him, and it's definitely an interesting argument. But of course, all of this factors into the fact that we are in an election year in the economy is going to be front and center on the minds of many voters as they are deciding whether they prefer Joe Biden or Donald Trump. And according to New York Times, pulling with Sienna, in the key swing states that ultimately will likely decide this election, and almost all of them,
Donald Trump right now is winning. We go now to Don Levy of Sienna. He's joining us now here on balance of power. He's the Sienna College Research Institute Director. Don is great to have you back on the show. So obviously we've had a few days now to sit with the survey data. We know that Trump is leading Biden and almost all of the swing states. We know that Biden is losing support in key demographics, including black
and Hispanic voters, young voters as well. How much of those dynamics are driven by the economy.
Well, voters tell us it's the number one issue by more than a two to one margin over immigration. Ortion finishes third, far and away. The economy is the most important issue to voters right now. And as you pointed out, right now, about three quarters of voters you're telling us across the swing states that they think the economy is no better than fear or poor by at least twenty points in some states as much as twenty seven points. They believe that former President Trump is a better steward
of the economy than his current President Biden. But one little interesting nugget that you hadn't mentioned in your earlier piece. The first question is survey that we asked across the ground days were how satisfied are you with your life today? We didn't specifically say the economy, we said your life. There the finding is a little bit upside down. We find that seventy four percent of voters across the six battleground states actually, despite the economy, say that they are
satisfied with their life today. So there is a bit of a disconnect amongst voters that perhaps gives a little bit of hope to the Biden campaign.
Speaking of hope for the campaign, Don welcome back.
It's great to see you.
Everyone should know Don Levy was rated the best polster in America by ABC News. And I bring that up, Don, because I keep hearing in Washington that the polls are wrong, that the samples broken, and that Democrats don't actually believe the numbers that we're seeing. Despite the incredible consistency through survey is not only your own, but others, other branded surveys that are in some cases finding the same results. How do you respond to those people?
Well, we respond by doing our work, you know. Coincidentally, I'm at the American Association for Public Opinion Research conference right now. Every single pollster in America here, I've been talking to every single one of them this week, you know, and by and large, we're getting very similar findings across multiple different methodologies, multiple different ways to reach the public. I'm pretty confident in our numbers right now. That isn't to say that these are going to be the exact
number on election day. But I think you know one thing I'll point out. For example, when you compare Biden versus Trump to the United States Senate races, we find that in for the states that we just pulled the Senate race, the Democratic candidate for the Senate is outperforming Joe Biden by at least a couple of points, as many as thirteen points in Nevada. So voters are not necessarily dissatisfied at present with Democrats, they're dissatisfied with Joe Biden.
So I think our numbers are pretty good at this point. You know, the previous attack on US as an industry is that we underrepresenting Trump voters. So for now, the Democrats that turn around and say it's flipped upside down is certainly their prerogative. But I think right now we feel pretty good about the accuracy of our pulls.
Well, Don, it's an interesting point you're making about how you are seeing stronger support for other Democratic presidents, just not the Democratic president or Democratic candidates, rather just not the Democratic presidential nominee. I guess it begs the question whether that's going to translate into a lot of split ticket voting, or if that's going to translate into a reverse coattails kind of effect and could actually be something that leads Joe Biden to outperform current expectations.
Fabulous question. You know, we're going to have to continue to track at the sea. You take a state like Nevada that you know most likely voters. Right now, we have Joe Biden trailing about as many as thirteen points Jackie rose and the Democratic incompent in the United States Senate amongst likely voters is a break even ken Jackie Rosen pulled Joe Biden along or will the voters with their tickets right now in a poll, they're splitting their ticket.
They continue to tell us that they hold Joe Biden responsible for the economy. They're looking for some sort of relief there. Whether he can generate that between now and the election day, whether there's another event, whether it's a trial, whether it's a debate. You know, we're going to continue to track that. But right now I would bet more on split ticket than I would on the reverse cotail theory.
Huh.
Fascinating.
There was a great story of Politico this week that's keeping a lot of people up at night done about what happens in the world of a tie two sixty nine to two sixty nine, nobody gets two seventy, Joe Biden and Donald Trump neither winning the electoral College, and this thing goes to the House of Representatives. This is the kind of stuff that gets journalists talking. We can
stop down on a contested convention if you want. I'll do whatever you want here, don But I wonder if that is something that you see as a plausible scenario that we're going to be talking talking about in November.
Well, we see it as a possible scenario Right now, the three more southern battleground states Georgia, Arizona, Nevada are all with sizeable leads for Donald Trump. The three northern states remaining about a toss up.
We have.
Biden up in one of those three states, Michigan. But assuming that Biden manages to pull off a victory in the three northern states, Trump the three southern states, then at this point the tiebreaker would be Nebraska two. So I think it's a plausible scenario that we can have a tie. But at this point we're going to concentrate on measuring public opinion and we'll add up to score later.
I just have to say the prospect of a tie as a journalist who will have to day how we figure out who won that.
Cancel the plans for November. It's our job to keep pulling you to that line, Don, even if you don't want to talk about it, we'll at least try to do our best.
Well, I'm sure that we're going to ask voters about it.
Boy, I'm sure that you will.
Don Levy of Siana College, always great to have you here on balance of power. Thank you so much. And of course it's not just about the headline figures in the polls. Okay, Trump is leading Biden. It's about who Trump is leading Biden with, or rather where Biden might be losing support, which is to advantage Trump. Trump's gain including Hispanic voters.
Sure exactly, Black voters.
Young voters, the coalition that Biden is going to need if he wants another term in the.
White House, voters who brought him to the dance in twenty twenty. As we discussed earlier, the speech at Morehouse is going to be looked at very closely. The President just wrapping I believe rem Mars at the African American Museum, one of the great pieces of architecture and sites of history here in the nation's capital.
You're listening to the Bloomberg Balance of Power podcast can just Live weekdays at noon Eastern on Applecarplay and then ron Oto with the Bloomberg Business ap. You can also listen live on Amazon Alexa from our flagship New York State j Just Say Alexa playing Bloomberg eleven thirty.
The Friday edition on Bloomberg TV and Radio. I'm Joe Matthew Indeed alongside Kaylee Lines here in Washington, d C. And Kaylee we are coming off of a wild episode in the US House that some are describing as a new low. Speaker Mike Johnson already had his hands full. This is an oversight hearing, and when we think oversight committee, you and I have talked a lot about the membership on that committee, Marjorie Taylor Green, Alexandri Costio Cortez. I
don't think I need to say anymore. If you watch the video here, this was pretty ugly stuff. An argument broke out, got super personal. Speaker Johnson says the hearing was not a good look for Congress. We've got to take the emotion out of these things and deal with the issues on their substance. I think we may, however, be far beyond removing emotion from politics right now in Washington.
Yeah, it's fair to say, this was, of course a late night hearing. It started with a comment from Jorie Taylor Green on another member of the committee's appearance. It kind of all devolved into chaos from there. The chairman, Jim Comer, had difficulty getting things back on track. But in some sense it just underscores the difficulty with decorum we have seen in the House of Representatives.
And what can be a dysfunctional body when it comes to lawmaking. If you can't even get people to treat each other with respect, how are you going to compromise on lawmaking?
Fair enough, although some lawmaking is still happening.
In fact, just yesterday, a bill that had passed in the House passed in the Senate related to how the SEC makes rules for accounting for cryptocurrency on bank's balance sheets. Essentially, it was a rule that makes it a lot harder and more expensive to be a custodian of crypto. It passed the Senate with a bipartisan vote, more than sixty votes. It has been, though promised a veto from the White House.
But it raises this wider question of the fate of legislation that the House is going to be voting on next week. Crypto market structure is going to be up for a vote, and I'm pleased to say joining us now is Congressman Wiley n a Democrat from North Carolina who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. Congressman, great to have you here on balance of power. Welcome to Bloomberg Television and Radio. I know that you have focused a great deal on crypto throughout your tenure in the
House thus far. How confident are you that this bill is going to pass a full floor vote after it made it out of committee.
Well, first of all, I just want to say how glad I am that you're not asking me about Marjorie Taylor Green.
In the oversight.
Thank you for that.
I am excited to talk about policy and the bipartisan work we're doing in Congress to get things done. And you know, if you're looking for good examples of a bipartisan cooperation, our work in the House Financial Services Committee on Digital assets is just that. This bill the fit for the twenty first Century Act, the first ever you know, a regulatory structure for digital assets, is coming to the floor of Flora vote next week. I was part of a group of six Democrats who worked with my Republican
colleagues and committee to move this bill. Similar group of Democrats in the Ag Committee as well, so we're gonna get a vote next week. I'm very excited because we are operating on a hundred year old security law, securities law for this industry, and we need to get regulations in place. We need to protect consumers and that's what this bill does.
Commerce but it's good to have you back. We haven't asked you about Marjorie Taylor Green yet, But as far as Crypto is concerned, what does the White House not understand on this legislation?
You know, I think the White House had a great executive order on Web three. I think, you know, Gary Gensler and the SEC are really at odds with a lot of others in the administration.
So I've been.
Very frustrated with Gary Gensler and the SEC's regulation by enforcement and frankly just open hostility towards Crypto.
So we're seeing that play out.
I was part of a group of twenty one Democrats who voted for the SAB one twenty one cra on the House floor last week. But just yesterday we saw twelve Senate Democrats agreeing with us that the SEC is way out of line and out of step, including Senator Schumer as part of that group of twelve Democrats.
So I think that's a great message.
And my hope is that Gary Gensler will see the writing on the wall and rescind SAB one twenty one. He has the ability to do that, and really what he's doing is making, you know, putting the President in a very difficult position forcing him to choose size. He
is not serving President Biden's best interests. So what he can do is he can withdraw it and work on the custodial banking peach, which is really the big policy point here that we want to get right so that you know, we have you know, bitcoin ETFs.
We want our US.
Highly regulated banks to be able to custody those assets, and he's prohibiting them.
From doing that.
Well, Congressman, you were there speaking of the twelve Democrats in the Senate who decided to vote in favor of this legislation yesterday, and I wonder what your message is, as a Democrat who is not running for reelection to those that are, and how they should be considering crypto in their policy considering, say, the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, Shared Brown, is.
Very vulnerable in Ohio.
He's running against a pro crypto advocate in Bernie Marino. There is tens of millions of dollars in crypto super pac money that could be mobilized against candidates like him. Is it a mistake for incumbent Democrats not to be pro crypto?
Right now?
I think it's a mistake for this to become a partisan issue. Twenty percent of registered voter's own crypto. Know this industry is not going away. And the message I have is, whether you love crypto or you hate crypto, you should want to have regulations. That's our message is Democrats. That's what the work I'm doing in a bipartisan way. Does we provide regulations for this industry?
And we don't. What I don't want to see is this become.
A partisan political issue because Web three should not be at all.
Congressman, I'm not going to ask you about Marjorie Taylor Green specifically, but when we look at the whole story here and what's been happening in the House of Representatives, the breakdown in decorum, the dysfunction that so many people talk about. People should know that you're a freshman congressman who's in fact in his senior term. You're leaving the House,
and we can get into the reasons why. But I wonder if A you're happy to be leaving because of the environment that you're surrounded in the workplace culture, if we can call it that in the US House, and B if you're on your way out of this body, right now you can do anything you want. Are you doing the risky business dance and the rotunda?
Like?
What do you do when you have free reign on your way out the door?
Well, you know, I am not retiring voluntarily. My district got jerry mannered away from me.
I love this job.
I have a lot more work I want to get done, so we're working twice as hard to get things done while I'm still in Congress.
There's future elections for me.
But the point that I think is really important for anybody watching the chaos and confusion that we see playing out in Congress, there is one thing to blame, and you can put your finger right on it, and as clear as day, it's extreme partisan jerrymandering. I got elected to Congress and a Republican seat. It was a slightly
Republican seat, could have gone either way. I won by three points because pro democracy Republicans made their voices heard and voters had a real choice, And jerry mannering is wrecking Congress. Less than ten percent of the seats are competitive. The other ninety percent are only going to go to whoever wins the Democratic primary or the Republican primary. That's how members of Congress are designed right now is they are just mainly here to win their Democratic primary, win
their Republican primary. That's why you see all these food fights and the crazy stuff you see in oversight, because that's their focus.
Less than ten percent are truly competitive. We won one of those.
So the answer is non parts and independent redistricting. That would totally change the face of Congress. You would get so many more people who are just focused on getting things done and working to cross the aisle. Well, that's what we need a lot more of, and we're going to have fewer and fewer seeds that are like that.
We're losing mind.
That's one example, and it's the thing that we got to change if we want to get sanity back in Congress.
Were you going to go on the road with Dead and Company now that you have the time on your hands. I remember distinctly the tribute you made to the grateful dead on the floor of the House about one year ago.
You can own it now, Congressman, No, A thousand percent.
You know, I saw you two at this sphere. I know Dead and Company is going to be.
At the sphere. I hope get out there to see them, you know, And you know, I know J.
Powell is definitely a fan and has not had his last Dead and Company show as well.
All right, well, we'll look for you on the vacuum cleaner during the space jam at the sphere. Congressman, it's great to have you back with us here. On balance of power Wiley Nickel, the Democrat North Carolina's thirteenth district, And that's the whole point there, actually really interesting point he made, Kaylee, on how partisan jerry mandering leads to more dysfunction like we saw last evening in Congress. You know, Jack Fitzpatrick has to bear through this every day up there in person.
He does the dysfunction and whether or not it leads ultimately to real legislating, which has been harder to come by in this Congress. It has been historically unproductive. But theoretically there is still more work that they could do through the remainder of this year, specifically before September thirtieth, when we're going to have to have the whole spending fight over again and.
Think we'll actually do a budget this time.
Well, let's be honest, probably not. But Tom Cole, the chair of the Appropriations Committee, is at least setting out some numbers overnight.
Yeah. Oh, and Jack has this. Of course, that's Jack Fitzpatrick's beat appropriations at Bloomberg Government, and I believe he's with us right now.
Jack.
Are we really going to have a regular order budget process going into the next fiscal year with an election underway? Or am I just making you laugh?
They are going to try to get started. How far they make it through the process is another question. I would say that Tom called the new Appropriations Chair even as he put out a markup schedule and said here's what we're going to spend on each of the twelve bills acknowledged, he would be, in his words, shocked if they got everything done by September thirtieth. Even if the House is productive, the Senate tends to move slowly. It's
an election year. They still haven't agreed in a broad way on how much money they want to spend overall on defense and non defense. So this puts a lot of pressure on the lame duck. The expectation is you try to make as much progress as you can and then basically whoever has a better day on election day can decide do we want to have a quick compromise in the lame Duck, or do we want to drag this out into twenty twenty five and try to use more votes that we're getting in the next Congress to
get a better deal. So there's going to be a lot of pressure on the lame Duck and some soul searching from whoever wins and whoever loses in terms of getting a final vote, and in the meantime they're going to try to make some progress, but it's it's an uphill battle this year.
Well, as you talk Jack about the kind of differences in opinion over defense versus non defense spending, it's worth pointing out that in the top line figures that were released by Chairman Cole yesterday, the bills would follow spending caps set in the twenty twenty three deat Limit law that equate to one percent increase for dispense spending a six percent cut for non defense funds.
We're still talking about that debt.
Limit deal that then nobody wanted to follow and then everybody ultimately basically ended up following. Anyway, when things were all said and done, are we relitigating this over again?
Yeah?
Yes, they are continuously re litigating the twenty twenty three debt limit deal, which is almost funny at this point because the debt limit suspension lifts in January, so by the time they're done arguing over the twenty twenty three deal, they'll have to start negotiating another one to avoid a default. There was the deal that was written into the law that allows for a bigger increase for defense and cuts
to non defense. But then you may remember there was a side deal between Democratic leadership and Kevin McCarthy, who's no longer speaker, to allow more to basically keep it even the idea, the handshake deal was just a one percent increase for both defense and non defense, so parody between the two House. Republicans are saying, well, that wasn't written into the law specifically, so we're not doing it, and we're cutting more money from non defense. There's not
a lot of middle ground here. There's not a lot of meeting in the middle between Republicans and Democrats, and that fight is going to have to play out for probably a number of months before there's a reckoning again, probably in the lame duck.
Jack, I've got to ask you about this meltdown on the Oversight Committee hearing that we saw last night. We were talking about it with the congressman before you joined. I'm not going to quote what was said. Marjorie Taylor Green instigated this. We had two members of Congress yelling at each other, criticizing their personal appearances, and things got pretty ugly here, to the point where the speaker had
to issue a statement. If this happened or prior speakers Nancy Pelosi, maybe John Bayner, wouldn't these people be brought into the Speaker's office and reprimanded. What's going to happen here?
Maybe? Maybe not? You know, you look specifically at the Marjorie Taylor Green story. When she was first elected, she had made a number of comments that led to a fight over whether she would serve on committees. She is now on a committee. She kind of allied herself to some extent with Kevin McCarthy, not necessarily tied closely to leadership.
But it's a bit of a sign of the times that even when there is a push to keep members off of committees for one reason or another, those pushes don't always succeed, and in a very very narrow majority that Republicans have in the House, even if they feel one of their members is doing something inappropriate, they may rely on their votes and may have to work with them, not indefinitely, as we saw with George Santos, but sometimes
for a long time. So there are a lot of factors that play into that, and Marjorie Taylor Green seems to almost be at the top of the list of members who have tested the limits of leadership's patients.
All right, Jack Fitzpatrick, Congressional reporter for Bloomberg Government, always covering the.
Chaos for us, Thank you so much.
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