If Donald Trump is re-elected in November, despite baggage that would deeply affect any other politician, he can attribute it primarily to one thing: voters' perception that he can handle their above concern – the economy – better than President Biden. Emphasis on “perception.”
Trump wants Americans to believe that, as president, he created “the largest economy in the history of the world” (fact check: false), and some voters believe it. He says that he will repeat the feat if he returns to power. The truth is that Trump inherited a growing economy from President Obama, just as he inherited his business from his father, and he left a pandemic-sick economy to Biden. Furthermore, the growth under his supervision not close to average under Obama, or any of the previous seven US presidents. Under Biden, the economy grew more last year than in any year of Trump's term.
opinion columnist
Jackie Calmes
Jackie Calmes brings a critical look to the national political scene. He has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.
Consider this a sort of rebuttal to Trump's false, hyperbolic or questionable claims to be master of the economic universe, because he's sure to regurgitate them during his debate with Biden on CNN on Thursday night.
The argument is not mine alone. Lately, experts have suggested that a re-elected Biden would be preferable to Trump 2.0 when it comes to the economy and the federal budget.
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has taken a comparative look at the fiscal record. Is analysis released Monday showed that Trump, as president, added $8.4 trillion to the national debt, nearly double the $4.3 trillion increase under Biden, with seven months left in his term.
The most expensive items within those sums reflect the contrasting priorities of the two presidents. Not even a quarter of Trump's debt is the product of his tax cuts, which primarily benefited corporations and wealthy Americans. Much of Biden's big spending went to college student loan relief, veterans' health care, food stamps and Medicaid.
Neither put much focus on the opposing economic imperative: containing the nation's ballooning annual budget deficits. But Trump's $443 billion in deficit reduction is less than a quarter of Biden's $1.9 trillion to date.
The bottom line: Biden defeats Trump, with less debt and more deficit reduction.
As for how the broader economy would fare depending on who is president after 2024, Moody's released a macroeconomic report last week. analysis of the candidates' agendas. Spoiler alert: “Simply put, as a whole, Biden's policies are better for the economy than Trump's,” Moody's chief economist Mark M. Zandi told me. “They lead to more growth and less inflation.”
In fact, Trump would create a recession before the end of 2025, thanks in large part to his two obsessions: tariffs and immigrants. Trump's plans to mass deport immigrants without legal status would deplete the workforce. And his proposed 10% tariff on all imports (60% or more on Chinese goods) would raise prices for consumers and manufacturers, reduce exports as other nations retaliate with their own tariffs, and cost American jobs. , just like his more limited first term. tariffs did.
Moody's projects that after Trump's recession, the economy would return to growth by the end of his second term, with four-year average annual growth of 1.3%. The growth forecast with four more years of Bidenomics? An average of 2.1% per year. Do the math.
Moody's is not the only one that has reached a favorable conclusion for Biden against Trumponomics. This week, Axios reported that 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists of different points of view signed a letter in which they concluded: “We all agree that Joe Biden's economic agenda is far superior.”
Trump likes to say he would move to impose tariffs and carry out deportations on “day one.” In fact, he can do many things unilaterally. But his third favorite policy, tax cuts, would need congressional approval. Since the first-term income tax cuts for mostly high-income Americans are set to expire next year, Trump wants to extend them, at a cost of about $5 trillion over a decade. And he wants to cut the corporate income tax rate even further.
Instead, Biden proposes expanding tax rates for Americans who earn less than $400,000 a year, and increase the corporate rate from 21% to 28%, halfway from its previous 35%. And he wants a minimum 25% wealth tax for those with a net worth of $100 million or more.
You might think the contrast between the rivals’ tax plans would have corporate bosses flocking to Trump’s side. That’s what some recent media reports have suggested by hyping the backing and donations of some billionaires: “A flood of elite GOP donors” have been “on the sidelines,” Axios claimed. wrote. Not quite.
Following reports that Trump had bombed In a private meeting this month with Business Roundtable executives (“remarkably vague, couldn't hold a clear thought”) came Monday's condemnation. opinion article in the New York Times “CEO Whisperer” Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, president of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale. Sonnenfeld wrote that not a single Fortune 100 CEO supports Trump, in a historic break for the largely Republican crowd.
“Trump's economic package scares them. “It’s extremely inflationary,” Sonnenfeld said. on CNBC, and the proposed tariffs in particular are “just crazy.” As for Biden, Sonnenfeld wrote in his op-ed that CEOs' distaste for the president's attacks on corporate “greed” and aggressive antitrust enforcement is offset by their appreciation of his investments in infrastructure and manufacturing. of chips, to avoid a post-pandemic recession. and record energy production and corporate profits, despite Trump's lies about it.
Sonnenfeld Prediction: “They will be reluctant Biden voters.”
The plutocrats' votes are not enough. Biden needs to reduce the majority of voters who tell pollsters that his main problems are the economy and inflation, and that Trump would do a better job on both. Biden—and the facts—must convert more of them into his voters, even if they are reluctant.
@jackiekcalmes
