President Donald Trump Claims Joe Biden ‘Plagiarized’ His Economic Proposals
President Donald Trump has accused his opponent in the upcoming general election — presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden — of plagiarizing his economic proposals. The president made the claim on Friday while speaking with reporters, according to Politico.
“He plagiarized from me, but he could never pull it off,” Trump said in response to a question about about Biden’s recently revealed plan for the economy.
“He likes plagiarizing. It’s a plan that is very radical left. But he said the right things because he’s copying what I’ve done, but the difference is he can’t do it.”
The Biden campaign had unveiled the former vice president’s “Build Back Better” economic strategy 24 hours earlier. Biden’s plan includes a “made in all of America” component, which focuses on the revitalization of American manufacturing, the retaining and creation of “well-paid” manufacturing jobs in the U.S. and a prompting to buy American goods. To that end, it calls for a $400 billion procurement investment, which the campaign asserts would increase demand for products made in the U.S.
Biden has further proposed a $300 billion investment in breakthrough technologies and research and development.
That emphasis on boosting American manufacturing and the purchasing of domestic goods in particular does strike a similar chord to the “America First” credo of Trump’s policies. However, Andrew Bates — a spokesperson for the Biden campaign — maintained in a statement to Politico that Biden’s economic proposals couldn’t be more different from those of the president.
“The truth is, Trump promised voters he’d stand with American workers, but spent his entire time in office siding with corporate boardrooms and his big money donors over middle class families — creating giant new financial rewards for outsourcing jobs and trying to take healthcare away from millions,” Bates said. “His presidency has thrown American manufacturing into a recession, killed tens of millions of jobs, and sent the strong economy he inherited from the Obama-Biden Administration into a full-on meltdown.”
Before the COVID-19 pandemic prompted the shut-down of commerce and public spaces around the country, national unemployment rates had reached record lows during Trump’s time in office. Per the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate had plummeted to 3.5 percent as of November of 2019 and remained at or near that mark through February of this year. However, the unemployment rate reached double-digits in April and has remained historically high as the nation contends with the ongoing health crisis.
Biden’s economic plan addresses the pandemic specifically, stating that a Biden administration would provide state, local and tribal governments with the aid to help keep essential workers on the job, extend the COVID-19 crisis unemployment insurance and provide a comeback package for Main Street businesses and entrepreneurs.
Politico further opined that the major focus of Trump’s economic policies are what he considers unfair trade deals, while the Biden’s proposals focus instead on domestic investment and job creation.
