In the opening paragraphs of Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Biden declared, “I ran for president to fundamentally change things, to make sure the economy works for everyone so we can all feel pride in what we do. To build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out, not from the top down. Because when the middle class does well, the poor have a ladder up and the wealthy still do very well. We all do well.”

President Biden is attempting to do something that no president has done since Ronald Reagan: fundamentally transform how Americans understand the economy and the role of government in creating economic growth and broad-based prosperity. The agenda Biden is advancing is much more than a collection of policies. His accomplishments represent a reimagining of how America conceives of and executes economic policy.

This is far from the first time that the president has planted the flag for middle-out economics. In his 2021 speech to a joint session of Congress, Biden proclaimed, “Trickle-down economics has never worked. It’s time to grow the economy from the bottom up and the middle out.”

He’s delivered on that vision, as he made clear in the first 45 minutes of the State of the Union address. Biden signed historic legislation to invest in infrastructure and high-tech manufacturing, fight climate change, increase Americans’ incomes, and lower their costs. Through executive orders and appointments, his administration is reining in the power of corporate monopolies in order to drive innovation, raise wages, and make people’s lives more affordable.