Democrats running for president in 2020 say the rapid job growth and low unemployment under President Trump is not enough and insist America needs to strive for a “moral” economy.
Their calls reflect a growing consensus among Democrats over how to deal with a healthy economy that is creating jobs and the rising influence of socialist candidates and lawmakers in the Democratic Party.
The U.S. economy added 304,000 new jobs in January, and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.0 percent, according to the Department of Labor. The country’s gross domestic product increased last quarter by 3.4 percent.
Less than a year before the first primaries, Democrats seem to have settled on an argument that says the economic gains seen over the last two years aren’t being “shared” with others.
“What happened to a moral responsibility, to a moral capitalism?” former Vice President Joe Biden asked an audience of students Tuesday during an event at the University of Pennsylvania.
The possible 2020 contender recalled his work with General Motors as part of the automobile industry bailout and criticized the corporation for not investing in worker training and modernizing when its fortunes improved.
“I’m not looking for charity. Business is not in business to be in charity, it’s to make money. But the last dime does not dictate what corporate responsibility should be,” the former 36-year longtime senator from Delaware said.
“And look, I don’t begrudge anybody making a million or hundreds of millions of dollars, I really don’t. But I do think there’s some shared responsibility, and it’s not being shared fairly for hard-working, middle-class, working-class people.”
Sen. Kamala Harris of California, also running for president, made a similar pitch in New Hampshire. The former California attorney told the business-oriented attendees their success shouldn’t be “vilified” because it was created in the “pursuit of the American Dream.”
But she also accused those praising the Trump economy of valuing job quantity over the quality of those jobs.
“Yeah, people are working. They are working two or three jobs,” Harris said. “We have to address these truths and do it in a way that recognizes that there is some course correction that needs to happen.”
Pressed on Trump’s economic record last weekend, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, a declared 2020 candidate, said: “Well, working Americans would tell you that the dignity of work is being stripped from them.
“Working Americans would tell you they’re working harder than their parents and falling further behind. Working Americans will tell you that while their salaries may moderately have gone up, what’s gone up more is the cost of prescription drugs, cost of child care, the cost of college.”
Booker’s answer was similar to that of another Democrat likely to run in 2020: Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who is currently on a “Dignity of Work” bus tour as a way of reaching people in early-voting states.
The message from the candidates reflect that of the Democratic Party hierarchy. “What Democrats are fighting for is prosperity that is shared. What Democrats are fighting for is a moral capitalism, a capitalism that understands that, when we all succeed, we all succeed,” Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez told NBC News last weekend.
In the 2016 race, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont targeted very wealthy Americans in his rhetoric and is set to ramp up criticism of billionaires during his 2020 run.
“You got three people who own more wealth than the bottom half of America. That is wrong. That’s morally wrong, in my view. That is bad economics,” he told CBS News this week.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has led attacks on wealthy potential 2020 rivals like former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ex-Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, arguing that using their own money to fund their campaigns undermines democracy.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story indicated that there were 200,000 new jobs in January, and the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent. It has since been corrected to note that there were 304,000 new jobs alongside a 4.0 percent unemployment rate. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
