Are the Trump and Biden Economies the Same? |
CounterPunch Exclusives
CounterPunch Exclusives
Are the Trump and Biden Economies the Same?
Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain
Jason Furman is a very good economist, but sometimes he gets some things wrong. His NYT column, saying the Trump and Biden economies are largely the same, is in that category.
Before saying what I think he got wrong, let me mention some very big things he got right. First, people do hugely overrate the impact of a president on the economy. The big things that happen to the economy are usually beyond a president’s control, like Covid or the OPEC price shocks in the 1970s. Nonetheless, the person in the White House tends to get blame or credit.
Second, there is obviously a large element of partisanship in people’s views of the economy. When Democrats see a Democrat in the White House, they tend to say things are good, and bad when there is a Republican. These partisan swings have gotten larger in recent years, and they tend to be bigger for Republicans than Democrats. Jason is on the money there but let me mention a few places where I think he missed the mark.
Harris Did Not Cheerlead the Biden Economy
First, I think he is very unfair in saying that former VP Kamala Harris was running around touting that the U.S. economy was the envy of the world. This claim was in fact true, but that was hardly the main story of her campaign.
Harris went around everywhere saying that she knew people were hurting and outlined proposals, especially on housing, on how she would make things more affordable. We can debate the merits of these proposals, but she was quite explicitly trying to address what she said were major problems in the economy.
I remember this well because I was haranguing people that I knew in the Biden administration that they should be boasting more about their economic achievements. They turned around an economy that was flirting with recession when Biden took office and went on to have the longest stretch of low unemployment in 70 years. Real wage growth for low paid workers was the best in more than half a century. There was an unprecedented boom in factory construction. I said at the time, and would say again, that Trump would have called it “the greatest economy EVER,” if it had happened under his watch.
Anyhow, this is all water under the bridge at this point, but it is simply unfair to say that Harris and the Democrats were blindly touting the great economy prior to the election. There was much more there to tout than they claimed credit for.
Did the Economy Turn for the Worse Under Trump?
Jason shows the data and it is hard to make a case that the economy had a........