Trump's Economy - Will Van Horne

Trump's Economy - Will Van Horne

According to Trump, Biden’s economic leadership has triggered something akin to Hoover’s Great Depression.  In his Chicken Little pronouncements, Trump has repeatedly noted if he loses the upcoming election, “you won’t have an economy anymore.”  If “Comrade Harris” wins, “this country will wind up in a depression, like 1929.”  In rural Pennsylvania, he recently spouted the same line. If he loses the election, “you won’t have a farm very long.”

Recent PEW Research surveys (May 13-May 19, 2024) provide more trustworthy, scientifically sampled citizen opinions about our economy. These views reflect probability samples designed by non-partisan polling experts. They should be preferred to the hyperbolic, evidence-immune ranting of a poster child for personal economic failure (i.e., a recently revealed $915 million income loss in 1995, and massive losses in other tax years as well.) The PEW research details citizen opinions about a) the condition of the national economy and b) their own personal household finances.

In July 2022, PEW researchers found a whopping 68 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning voters expected the economy to worsen a year later. Two years later, after exposure to Biden’s economy (May 2024), only 38 percent of Republicans held this “worsening” view – a jaw-dropping 30 percentage-point shrinkage. Among Democrats in 2022, only 29 percent thought the economy would worsen in the coming year. That figure dropped 5 percentage points to 24 percent by May 2024. In short, Republican and Democratic negative slices of overall opinion pies – shrunk dramatically after three years of Biden’s economy. Chicken Little’s sky didn’t fall after all!

GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST

Republicans and Democrats (July 2022) were far more positive about their personal finances than their views of the national economy.  Even so, 24 percent of Republican voters thought personal finances would worsen in one year, with 13 percent of Democrats holding a similar opinion. Two years later, the percentages holding negative views of future family finances dropped 2 percentage points among Republicans (22 percent) and Democrats alike (11 percent). Significantly, regardless of political stripe, partisans viewed their household financial status more favorably than the national economy. The actual experience of everyday economic life was not the bleak, bankrupt landscape portrayed by Trump. Still, when negative assertions are inconsistent with one’s actual personal experience, they are easily rationalized by zealots - even if untrue. “Well, we’re doing OK, but a lot of others aren’t.”

A second striking fact is this: If we shift our analysis from opinion to actual performance measures, a far different picture emerges. Using a sports analogy, one can ask baseball fans to rate players on a five-point scale. Alternatively, we can track actual performance indicators like their batting average, their slugging percentage, their RBI total, or their on-base percentage. These indicators are performance facts, not opinions.

The standard research reference on the growth of domestic product, for example, is a 2016 study by economists (Binder and Watson). They tracked inflation-adjusted GDP growth back to the Truman era. Average annual GDP growth under Democratic presidents was 4.3 percent, under Republican presidents, 2.5 percent. Subsequent analyses by the NY Times (2021) found similar trends, i.e. since 1933, GDP grew at an annual rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republican presidents.

Trends in unemployment rates from the 1949 presidential term of Harry Truman forward to February 2024 of Biden’s presidency present a similar profile. In the seven Republican presidential terms occurring between 1948 and February of 2024, unemployment rates increased (per the Bureau of Labor Statistics) in six. In the seven Democratic terms, unemployment rates dropped in six and remained unchanged in one.

Job creation statistics are still more compelling. According to Glenn Kessler, chief Fact Checker for The Washington Post, in 2020, “For the 13 presidents beginning with Truman, total job creation was 2.4 times faster under Democrats, 70.5 million for the seven Democratic presidents and 29.1 million for the six Republican presidents. Democratic presidents were in office a total of 429 months, with 164,000 jobs monthly added on average, while the Republicans were in office for 475 months, with a total of 61,000 jobs added monthly on average.

Republicans act appalled by the national debt, but rarely talk about Trump’s signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.  On July 27, 2018, Trump told Sean Hannity, “We have $21 trillion in debt. When this (2017 tax cut) kicks in, we’ll start paying off that debt like its water.” This is standard supply-side mythology; most economists agree that the Act’s massive corporate tax cuts (from 35% to 21%) helped trigger the very debt explosion predicted by the independent Congressional Budget Office. Trump ignores such evidence and plans more corporate tax cuts.  Can we truly afford four more years as the “King of Debt” reprises Lucy’s role in spotting the football for Charlie Brown? Fool me once....

 

Dr. Willard Van Horne is a retired research sociologist and former Director of Fiscal Analysis with the New York State Education Department.