Biden Cabinet unveils new plans to lower prices before Trump debate

President Joe Biden’s Cabinet will wrap up a barnstorming tour Thursday after two weeks on the road, touting the administration’s economic accomplishments ahead of the Democratic incumbent’s first debate against former President Donald Trump.

In the 10 days leading up to Thursday’s debate, the White House organized 29 public events, featuring more than a dozen top administration officials to promote Biden’s economic agenda, a White House official said in a memo announcing the blitz.

The events were spread across 15 states, including key battlegrounds like Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg have participated in the road show, along with 15 other Cabinet members and senior administration officials.

On Wednesday, Domestic Policy Advisor Neera Tanden announced a new plan to temporarily lower the out-of-pocket costs of some prescription medications for seniors, by penalizing pharmaceutical companies that raised drug prices faster than the rate of inflation.

“Seniors were completely exposed to Big Pharma’s price hikes. Not anymore,” Neera Tanden, White House domestic policy advisor, said in the release.

Earlier this week, Yellen visited Minnesota to announce a new $100 million affordable housing fund.

“Thanks to President Biden’s economic plan, the American economy is strong and resilient, with robust economic growth in recent quarters,” she said in a speech Monday.

“The labor market is remarkably healthy, with low unemployment, rising real wages and a bigger share of working age Americans in the workforce than before the pandemic.”

Throughout the tour, administration officials have amplified economic arguments that both Biden and his campaign have hammered in recent months, and which will likely come up again at Thursday’s debate.

“The president has called out big corporations to pass along savings to consumers, secured historic cost-lowering legislation, directed his Cabinet to use every tool to lower costs, and eliminated hidden junk fees in nearly every area of a family’s budget,” Brainard said at an event hosted by The Urban Institute.

The White House’s push to boost voters’ economic pessimism and counter Republican narratives about inflation — a persistent weakness for Biden in the polls — dovetail with the Biden campaign’s own efforts.

But they differ in one key way: While White House officials share the positive news and developments for which they credit Biden’s economic policies, they take care not to mention Donald Trump by name, or any other Republican candidates.

The job of reminding voters how Biden differs from Trump is left to the campaign, which on Wednesday released a new ad contrasting their “dueling economic visions” and accusing the Republican ex-president of lacking a plan to “help working families.”

The goal of the tour is for officials to “showcase” Biden’s economic agenda, “as they have done throughout the administration,” White House spokesperson Jeremy Edwards told CNBC.

Edwards likened the past two weeks to any other economic promotion blitzes that the administration has launched during Biden’s first term.

“Since President Biden took office, the administration continues to meet people where they are to highlight the work we are doing on behalf of the American people,” Edwards said in a statement to CNBC.

Indeed Biden’s Cabinet members embarked on a very similar two week road show in March, following his State of the Union address.

The latest efforts to hype up Biden’s economic wins come as consumer confidence has ticked down this month, according to the nonprofit business research group The Conference Board. The June index reading released Tuesday decreased slightly to 100.4 from 101.3 in May, signaling that households are feeling slightly worse about the economy this month than they did last month.

The Department of Labor is poised to release its weekly initial jobless claims data on Thursday, just hours ahead of the debate. The numbers, while limited to just one week, could still provide a last-minute boost to either Trump or Biden, depending upon where they fall. An updated estimate of U.S. gross domestic product also comes out Thursday.

The candidates’ dueling claims about the economy will be further tested Friday morning, when the Federal Reserve releases May data from the inflation measure the central bank prefers: the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) index.