Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:06 pm
How do you suppose a Republican presidential candidate goes about “making America great again”? Well, if we use history as a guide, they implement policies that make America great for the very connected and rich, on the backs of the working class and working poor.
The Moody’s Analytics report on the Republican 2016 presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump’s policies, including  policies on taxes, government spending, immigration, and international trade, isn’t pretty. Employment would be reduced by 3.5 million jobs and a heavy recession would hit the nation. The economy will “weaken significantly” under Trump’s policies. More:
The U.S. economy will weaken significantly if Mr. Trump’s economic policies are fully implemented as he has proposed. The economy will suffer a recession that begins in early 2018 and extends into 2020 (see Table 1)
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This would be an unusually lengthy recession—even longer than the Great Recession—although the severity of the decline in economic activity would be more consistent with a typical recession suffered since World War II. Employment will continue to decline and unemployment will rise into the next presidential term, with the unemployment rate peaking at 7.4% in summer 2021.11
But surely Trump would reduce the debt and deficit, since Republicans have been hysterical about both since President Obama took office.
 The economic damage created by Mr. Trump’s policies is also stark when considering how the economy would perform if there were no significant changes to policy.
Mr. Trump’s economic policies hurt the economy due in part to the large budget deficits and heavy debt load that result from his tax and spending policies.
Yes, the Trump plan would make America great again by adding $1 trillion to the deficit, if his plan were implemented as presented.
But it would look good on the surface! At least at first. I’m sure you remember the Bush years, when Vice President Dick Cheney explained, “You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.â€
The large tax cuts and bigger deficits actually support stronger consumer spending and economic growth, particularly early in Mr. Trump’s term, before the negative impacts of the higher interest rates caused by the large deficits take hold. Since the economy is operating at full employment when the tax cuts take effect, the so-called crowding- out effects from the larger deficits appear quickly.
Nick Timiraos of the Wall Street Journal noted the objection by the Trump campaign, “A person close to the Trump campaign said such analyses rested on flawed assumptions about policies that haven’t been fully fleshed out by the campaign.”
Timiraos pointed out that the Moody’s report was led by economist Mark Zandi, who has donated to  Hillary Clinton. There are also three other authors. So prepare yourself to hear that this is a big old partisan hit job, which is Republican-speak for economists and market watchers are terrified of Donald Trump’s policies, such as they are.
In fact, the report notes that Trump’s policies will cause a 25% drop in the S & P 500, but wait! Everything will be right back to where we started four years later, after a “difficult four years for the typical American family”:
Stock prices, which will get hammered early in his presidency given the weaker economy and higher interest rates, will make their way back and end his term about where they were when he took office. House prices will follow roughly the same path. It will be a difficult four years for the typical American family.
So after the working class loses their pensions as stocks plunge, insiders will get richer and the wealthy will make even more money. Bush Recession Déjà vu.
The Moody‘s report couldn’t take all of Trump’s policies into account, in part because they are “not sufficiently developed to quantify.” Read that again because it very accurately sums up Donald Trump as a presidential hopeful.
Donald Trump is exposing and laying bare the empty rhetoric and ever-changing “values” of the modern day Republican party. He isn’t a one-off disaster for them; Republicans built Donald Trump from the ground up from Southern Strategy bigotry as a get out the vote tactic to the economic shell game they sell as patriarchal big daddy will fix everything if you just turn over your wallet and brain while they rob you.
And as usual, Trump is denying this report due to his own failure to fully flesh out actual policies. For more on this tactic, see House Republicans screaming about an actual law, Obamacare, while offering up empty pages as their alternative.
These are not serious people. It’s no surprise that reality TV gangster-style self-enricher Donald Trump is their current leader.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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