AUBURN, Maine — Lauding the work done at a textile company here that has fought a trade war with China, President Joe Biden attacked “trickle-down economics” in a historic manufacturing region of Maine.
The trip was Biden’s first Maine trip of his presidency and part of the Democrat’s effort to burnish his economic record despite political struggles ahead of the 2024 election. He has been traveling the country to tout the 800,000 manufacturing jobs since he took office in 2021.
This is both an important topic and a bugaboo in Maine, which has lost nearly half its manufacturing jobs since the early 1990s. The state is still mired in a slow transition from legacy industries to rising high-tech ones. While the White House touted 1,200 more manufacturing jobs here on Biden’s watch, the sector has lost jobs here over the past year.
The president’s visit put one success story on display. He signed an executive order aimed at boosting domestic production of goods invented in the U.S. before speaking at Auburn Manufacturing, a textile company that has been in a long battle with China over what the federal government has called unfair subsidies to the company’s competitors.
On Friday, CEO Kathie Leonard cited Biden’s policies in aiding Auburn Manufacturing, saying the roughly 50-employee firm will grow 30 percent in part due to the president’s policies, including the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act that she said are “helping reignite the U.S. economy.”
“I’m not here to declare victory on the economy. We have more work to do,” he said in a half-hour speech. “Bidenomics is just another way of saying, restoring the American Dream. Forty years of trickle-down economics limited that dream to the very top.”
After landing at Brunswick Executive Airport on Air Force One just after noon Friday, Biden took Marine One, his helicopter, about 30 miles northwest to Auburn for the afternoon speech. He was scheduled to attend a Freeport campaign fundraiser before going back to Brunswick and flying to his vacation home in Delaware, spending about five hours in Maine.
His visit to Auburn was the first by a sitting president since William Howard Taft traveled through the city by train in 1912. Biden’s route followed a familiar path. Lyndon Johnson flew into Brunswick on a visit to Lewiston in 1966 on a trip remembered for his trip to a Dairy Queen in Topsham decorated with a sign saying he ate there.
It was a quick trip for Biden Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, a swing area that former President Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2020. Auburn has special significance as a swing city that went for Trump during his first race but flipped to the current president in 2020.
Biden and members of his administration have traveled the U.S. this summer to tout his economic plan and legislation he has signed into law, including the Inflation Reduction Act and a bill to boost domestic semiconductor development.
Last month, the president told an audience in Chicago about “Bidenomics,” placing it in opposition to trickle-down policies and defining it as “building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down.”
He repeated that line on Friday, also referencing the 2001 closure of the Bates Mill textile factory in Lewiston and the 2015 closure of the Verso paper mill in Bucksport, saying the latter site now “raises sustainable salmon” even though that plant remains in the design phase.
Three members of Maine’s congressional delegation — all but Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins — traveled with Biden to their state on Air Force One on Friday. They included U.S. Rep. Jared Golden, a centrist Democrat who lives in Lewiston, represents the 2nd District and has been one of the president’s major critics on offshore wind and spending initiatives.
Auburn is represented by a Republican mayor along with two Republicans and two Democrats in the Legislature, and Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, in 2022. Mills, Golden, U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, and Auburn Mayor Jason Levesque spoke at the event on Friday.
Biden is in a tough spot politically. Nationally, his approval ratings are mired in the low 40s. He won Maine handily during the 2020 election, but 53 percent of Mainers disapproved of him in an April poll by the University of New Hampshire.
Trump remains the favorite to win the Republican nomination to take on Biden in 2024 despite criminal charges and other legal issues, and the Maine Republican Party hit the president for high costs in a statement on Friday.
“If he had any shame, the taxpayer cost of this campaign trip would have been donated to helping Maine seniors afford the Biden price hike on their heating oil this winter,” Joel Stetkis, the party chairman, said.
