Biden taps into Sen. Bob Casey’s economic agenda as he seeks reelection

President Joe Biden has traveled to the Keystone State more than two dozen times since taking office in 2021 and it’s showing.

Going into the 2024 presidential election, President Joe Biden is including populist economic policies championed by US Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) as part of his campaign platform for reelection.   

The president called for Congress to pass Casey’s Shrinkflation legislation during the State of the Union address on Thursday, and reiterated that rallying cry at a campaign event in Delaware County the following day. 

“Too many corporations raise their prices and pad their profits, charging you more and more for less and less. That’s why we’re cracking down on corporations on engage in price gouging and deceptive pricing,” Biden told supporters inside a Strath Haven Middle School auditorium on Friday.

“Congress needs to sign Bobby Casey’s bill to stop shrinkflation.”

Shrinkflation is a form of price gouging where companies shrink the size of their packages while charging the same amount of money, if not more, for that snack item or drink. Casey has issued several reports since November on shrinkflation and corporate price gouging that cost Pennsylvania families thousands of dollars. 

Casey, who is running for reelection against Republican Dave McCormick, a former Connecticut based hedge fund manager, has also pushed Biden and his administration to crack down on junk fees from event promoters such as Live Nation. 

Earlier this year, Casey sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission urging them to adopt a rule on deceptive and unfair pricing and Biden recently announced the creation of a strike force looking into unfair pricing policies. 

Casey began laying the groundwork for this economic platform just as McCormick was launching his campaign last fall. Casey’s populist agenda is  a stark contrast to McCormick’s opulent lifestyle. 

McCormick served as president and CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge funds, between 2009 and 2022 and spent most of the time living on Connecticut’s Gold Coast, which has the highest concentration of wealth throughout the entire country. 

The Associated Press reported last year that McCormick was renting a $16 million mansion that had a 1,500-bottle wine cellar and a private waterfront resort on the Long Island Sound. 

“First and foremost, nobody understands working families more than Senator Bob Casey, and nobody’s fought more for working families than Bob Casey. So to take that road map is a road right into the middle class,” Darrin Kelly, President of the Allegheny/Fayette Central Labor Council, said in an interview when asked about the importance of Biden promoting Casey’s economic agenda. 

Kelly cited Casey’s work on bringing funds from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to Southwestern Pennsylvania and mentioned the East Montgomery lock and dam project. According to CHNI News, the lock and dam helps regulate cargo on the Ohio River and the project received $857 million from the infrastructure law to replace part of a dam that’s at risk of failing. 

Kelly also criticized McCormick’s statements about wanting to  repeal the infrastructure law.. The Republican  has appeared on multiple conservative radio programs since launching his campaign last fall and talked about repealing the popular infrastructure law.

“I think for McCormick to say that he wants to repeal it is a slap in the face to every person in this country that has one way or another benefited from it,” Kelly said.

“Our infrastructure has aged for decades, and nobody stepped forward like this president, and to say that they want to repeal it—there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of union members working around this country on infrastructure projects directly related to it.”