Reblogged:Trump: Worse for Economy Than Harris?

[Gus Van Horn blog]

Brad Polumbo looks at the only sane reason to consider Trump and finds him lacking.

***

At the Washington Examiner, Brad Polumbo warns that voters who think Trump will return us to the relative prosperity of pre-pandemic times are badly mistaken.

In fact, Trump may compare unfavorably to Kamala Harris overall:

Trump is running on a platform that's utterly detached from traditional fiscal conservatism. The Wharton School of Business estimates that Trump's overall agenda would add $4.1 trillion to $5.8 trillion to the national debt over 10 years, several trillion more than Vice President Kamala Harris's plans would. [link and emphasis in original]

This may sound like an exaggeration, but it isn't. Recall that Trump has already surpassed another Democrat, Joe Biden, similarly, outspending him by trillions on pandemic handouts.

That's the big picture. If anything, the day-to-day picture is scarier, and the striking thing about this piece is that Polumbo builds up to the above by citing agenda items that include a couple that any dunce with a halfway rudimentary grasp of supply and demand could see are bad ideas.

Take tariffs, Trump's favorite brand of snake oil:

... Trump has proposed taking his somewhat narrow trade restrictions, mainly targeting China, and blowing them up into an all-out trade war with the entire world. He has proposed a 10% or even 20% flat tariff, aka tax, on all imported goods, even from allies and neighbors. Not only would this surely prompt retaliation, but it would also cost Americans thousands of dollars in increased costs every year via higher consumer prices, something most families can't afford after years of inflation under President Joe Biden.

Polumbo similarly demolishes Trump's proposed credit interest rate cap, comparing it to Illinois's failed blue-state policy along the way for good measure.

At this juncture, the only possible reason I can see for casting a vote for Trump would be that he might have a better energy policy overall than Harris. But would that matter in the face of policies that could (and arguably have in the past) cause an economic depression -- and the nutcases he'll surround himself with (instead of relatively sane traditional Republicans) -- this time around? RFK Jr. aside, Vice President Vance is Exhibit A in that department.

Anyone who hasn't paid much attention to politics over the past couple of years is in for a rude awakening as soon as he gets past the orange skin and bad haircut of the Republican nominee. This is not your father's Republican nominee nor is this even the Donald Trump of 2016: This is someone who, unable to understand why Democrat policies cause such daily pain, will unwittingly double down on essentially the same thing, while setting the table for theocratic, nationalist nuts to take over when he's done.

I have called this contest one between the Party of the Dark Ages and the Party of Blackouts. One of those outcomes is easier to come back from than the other.

-- CAV

Link to Original

[DavidOdden]

We all know that the three kinds of lies are lies, damned lies, and statistics, however we ought to include an even worse kind of lie: economic models. I see no reason to believe the claims made in the “non-partisan” PWBM projections. It seems to me what we ought to care about is the actual campaign statements of the candidates. Then, of course, there is the question of whether any candidate will implement their announced plan (when, exactly, was the last time that ever actually happened?).

The national debt is a function of (a) government revenue and (b) government expenditure. Trump’s announced policy strongly favors tax reductions, which is a good thing. Trump’s proposal to compensate for general tax cuts via import tariffs is, of course, robbing Peter to pay Peter and it is a loser of a proposition. None of the analyses indicate any increase in spending by Trump (and no analysis of plans to reduce spending). The problem with federal spending is not fraud and waste, it is federal spending itself, the idea that the federal government is an infinite pool of money to be distributed liberally. I understand that Trump has no intention of pissing off a demographic by announcing “we’re gonna stop shipping you buckets of money”. Without a clear picture of planned and realistic tax changes and expenditure changes, there’s no way to project effect on debt.

Harris’s announced policy strongly favors tax increases for corporations and successful individuals, reserving tax reductions to lowest-income people (the concept of “fair share” does not apply). Harris will create another entitlement program (down payment assistance) for her target demographic – that’s an increase that we know about. Harris also brings to the table the threat of federal price controls. We did that during two world wars and also when Nixon ran the country, for 90 days. The aftermath, for those who didn’t experience it, was shortages – if you can’t make a buck selling chickens because of price controls, don’t grow chickens. It took almost a decade for the economy to recover from his economic policies. Harris was in grade school when this happened so I guess she is unaware how bad a policy price controls are.

If we enumerate the “good ideas” on both sides (the remainder are bad ideas), Trump has one good economic idea (reducing taxes), and Harris has none. If we focus on the count of horrid ideas, we have a tie (tariffs, price controls). But price controls – which we do not have and have not had for a half century – are substantially worse than tariffs, which we already have.

Both candidates deserve to fry in hell. I find it very hard to buy the argument that Trump is worse than Harris.

[EC]

Yeah both are horrible. I won't ever vote again for anyone unless the person centers their campaign around protecting individual rights and moving towards capitalism and away from the mixed economy or worse that we are headed towards with every politician currently. There would have to be an extremely evil candidate and one with few contradictions with actual important differences between the two and actually having full explicit principles for the context to be okay to make exceptions to that. When both are for essentially fascist economic policies or socialist policies to some degree while both are for violations of rights in  different manners the differences to warrant a vote especially in the context of all the extremely negative and/or immoral ideas and policies presented its generally not possible to make a lesser of two evils vote like in most presidential elections. Especially with the high levels of mixed collectivism/tribalism/racism/authoritarianism/nihilism/ pragmatism that is coming in various degrees from all sides. That needs to be eliminated and it's possible that could be eliminated more quickly possibly on the right if they deemphesized the mysticism and returned to a more principaled positive idividualist ethics even though they would do it improperly at first due to the latent mysticism/nihilism and pragmatism that would have to wain away as it's replaced with morality and properly reasoned principles designed for the correct moral purpose of protecting the rights of all individuals without the contradictions that currently exist because of their mysticism/nihilism.

Edited September 24 by EC

[tadmjones]

That’s what a vote for Trump is , he is the candidate neither side of the duopoly wants.