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US ELECTION 2024 POLITICAL TEMPERATURE NEAR BOILING POINT WP: Opinion To understand the U.S. economic success is to love Harris’s plan Kamala Harris’s economic proposals would build on the remarkable U.S. comeback since the pandemic. Vice President Kamala Harris and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper in Durham, North Carolina, on March 1. (Peter Zay/Getty Images) Original article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/27/kamala-harris-economic-proposals/ Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
Opinion To understand the U.S. economic success is to love Harris’s plan Kamala Harris’s economic proposals would build on the remarkable U.S. comeback since the pandemic. Written by Jennifer Rubin October 27, 2024 at 7:45 a.m. EDT Despite the compulsion of Republican MAGA voices to run down the country’s economic strength, the U.S. recovery over the past few years has been nothing short of miraculous. “Policymakers in the United States and other major economies have quelled the worst inflation in four decades without tumbling into recession,” The Post reported on Oct. 22, citing the International Monetary Fund. The IMF “also raised its forecast for U.S. economic growth over the next two years, confirming that the world’s largest economy has enjoyed the strongest recovery from the pandemic of any advanced nation.” The United States achieved that enviable position because an independent Federal Reserve held the line on inflation; President Joe Biden pushed through major legislation that made huge investments in infrastructure and new technology (and induced the private sector to do the same); and other policies freed up consumer spending (by, among other things, saving consumers $1 billion in drug costs and providing a substantial stimulus). Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen this week cautioned about blowing up the progress already made. “From day one, we rejected isolationism that made America and the world worse off and pursued global economic leadership that supports economies around the world and brings significant benefits to the American people and the U.S. economy,” she said. Yellen credited the symbiotic relationship between the federal government and private sector, noting that on green energy, “public investments have been met by more than five times as much in private investment.” To review: Don’t go protectionist; rather than giving giant tax cuts for the rich and corporations, make massive, job-producing investments, leave the Federal Reserve alone and help juice consumer spending. That successful formula explains why Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic plans, building on that successful approach, is vastly preferable to Donald Trump’s formula (protectionism, massive tax cuts for the rich, undoing the Inflation Reduction Act, etc.). Plenty of economists agree. Take, for example, a survey of 39 economists by the Wall Street Journal, Steven Rattner recently wrote online. Harris’s “proposal for a $6,000 tax credit for newborns won 74% approval, her plan to increase the corporate tax rate was favored by 59%, and the concept of capping insulin prices at $35 for all garnered the support of 64%. (Capping out-of-pocket spending on all prescription drugs was essentially a tie.)” He added, “In contrast, only 8% favored making Trump’s tax cuts permanent, not a single economist favored his tariff plan, and just 5% supported eliminating taxes on Social Security benefits.” By one estimate, Trump’s tariff plan alone would cut gross domestic product by nearly 9 percent. Likewise, a letter from 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists (separate from the 82 Nobelists who endorsed her on Thursday) explained: “His policies, including high tariffs even on goods from our friends and allies and regressive tax cuts for corporations and individuals, will lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality. Among the most important determinants of economic success are the rule of law and economic and political certainty, and Trump threatens all of these.” Harris’s middle-class focused policies, they argued, “will do far more than Donald Trump’s to increase the economic strength and well-being of our nation and its people.” If you understand what worked, you can understand why Harris’s proposed investments (e.g., in housing, in start-up businesses, in 21st-century technologies), plan to extend prescription drug savings and added help for consumers (e.g., child tax credit, another $6000 baby tax credit) is more likely to produce similarly successful results than a plan that does the opposite of what worked (ending Biden-Harris era investments and drug cost controls, giving tax breaks focused on top income earners, politicizing the Fed and protectionism). The Biden-Harris administration tapped into the great American economic success story. The Economist, reviewing the U.S. success over decades, put it succinctly: “The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust.” The Economist pointed out: “On a per-person basis, American economic output is now about 40% higher than in western Europe and Canada, and 60% higher than in Japan — roughly twice as large as the gaps between them in 1990.” And then there’s this: “Average wages in America’s poorest state, Mississippi, are higher than the averages in Britain, Canada and Germany.” In running down America and its economy, Trump and his MAGA minions overlook the assets that have helped the nation achieve economic dominance. (The Economist again: “the world’s deepest financial markets has made it easier for startups to raise equity,” “the plethora of exciting young companies,” the dollar’s function as the world’s reserve currency, “the world’s best universities, which remain so in part by attracting the world’s best students.”) Frankly, if Americans better understood the U.S. economic success and the policies that helped deliver it, they might better appreciate why Harris’s plan is so highly praised by economists and Trump’s is so criticized. If nothing else, Trump’s tariff plan — the same sort that helped usher in recessions in the 1890s and the 1930s — should be reason to reject his scheme. Voters have a choice: Harris’s formula that helped bring about a historic recovery (building on America’s extraordinary economic success story) or one that is nearly guaranteed, as history shows, to risk economic disaster. Opinion by Jennifer Rubin Jennifer Rubin writes reported opinion for The Washington Post. She is the author of “Resistance: How Women Saved Democracy from Donald Trump” and is host of the podcast Jen Rubin's 'Green Room.'follow on X @JRubinBlogger Opinions on the 2024 elections Next Sherrod Brown is testing a new pro-worker playbook in Ohio OpinionSherrod Brown is testing a new pro-worker playbook in Ohio To understand the U.S. economic success is to love Harris’s plan OpinionTo understand the U.S. economic success is to love Harris’s plan Trump and Putin need each other OpinionTrump and Putin need each other Kamala Harris forgets to hide her abortion radicalism OpinionKamala Harris forgets to hide her abortion radicalism Kamala Harris needs a minute OpinionKamala Harris needs a minute Why Harris’s pitch to Muslim and Arab American voters is failing OpinionWhy Harris’s pitch to Muslim and Arab American voters is failing Here’s how Trump could curb national abortion access — unilaterally OpinionHere’s how Trump could curb national abortion access — unilaterally Harris’s closing argument is dishonest, desperate and hypocritical OpinionHarris’s closing argument is dishonest, desperate and hypocritical The double standard for Harris and Trump has reached a breaking point OpinionThe double standard for Harris and Trump has reached a breaking point Social Security is in trouble. 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