Copy of AFF Sentinel V21 #39-Trump Goes to Chicago
- Steve Dittmer
- Jul 22
- 4 min read
How Some Economists Evidently Think
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 10/16/24
Election Key Points
Points 1-3 appeared in the last column.
4) Detail: Cutting tax rates does not mean less revenue for the government. The most recent tax cuts were enacted in 2017. Year 2020 was the Covid shutdown enacted by many state governors. Year 2023 was year 3 of the Biden/Harris economic slowdown.
Federal Tax Receipts: in TRILLIONS
2017 $3.32
2018 $3.33
2019 $3.46
2020 $3.42* Year of shutdown
2021 $4.05
2022 $4.9
2023 $4.44
Source: The Balance Money & Statista*
Former President Trump sat on stage for a long interview at the Chicago Economists meeting Tuesday, Oct. 15. The interviewer -- a somewhat hostile one at that -- was John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg and past editor of The Economist, accounting for his British accent, distaste for Trump and disdain for conservative economic philosophy, at least the supply side wing and evidentiary results.
One could be forgiven for any naïve notion that all economists judge predictions and results objectively, looking at the same data and all. The longer one observes economists, the more one realizes how much political ideology colors the interpretation of many economists. The most honest ones often explain where they are coming from when they give their interpretations and predictions. Many don’t.
The split among economists has never been more clear than this week, given the reception given Trump’s interview in front of what one would assume included some leftist economists at a Chicago confab and a survey of economists the Wall Street Journal conducted just recently.
Micklethwait and Trump got into it several times during the interview, with the former trying to get Trump to get to the point and Trump insisting on giving the background on answers rather than delivering quick sound bites. One might characterize some of the exchanges as Trump biting back, rather than letting the interviewer deliver his own version of the facts unchallenged. But Trump called Micklethwait out and included some other economists as having been wrong on some of their pronouncements. After all, many economists predicted a trade war from Trump’s moves last time, predicted no growth, job loss and ballooning deficits and a world war.
Given the audience, we were surprised that some of Trump’s ripostes drew applause from the audience.
Much of the most spirited discussion centered around trade. Micklethwait has taken Trump’s earlier pronouncements of blanket tariffs on everyone literally, as many of the media have in order to portray Trump -- despite four years of evidence -- as really a protectionist who would slap tariffs on everyone and raise consumer prices in the process. Trump has used the phrase “reciprocal tariffs” in more measured moments, meaning that he would use tariffs, or the threat thereof, as tools to get fair treatment out of countries that have been taking advantage of the U.S.
The Democrats, looking for some gotcha, have portrayed any tariffs as a tax on consumers, with no regard for countries that we have free trade agreements with or access issues, where countries have been allowed to export to us but refuse to allow imports from us. It is ludicrous to imply Trump would wreck the very free trade agreements his team negotiated from scratch or existing ones he improved through renegotiation.
True leftist economists all the way through have even been wringing their hands over lost taxes and lost workers from Trump deporting illegals if he is elected. Never mind that native-born workers have been losing jobs and foreign-born workers have been gaining, for a difference of over two million jobs.
While Trump is given to hyperbole at times, there sometimes is method to his madness. Larry Kudlow and Steve Moore, two economist who have either served Trump or advised him, pointed out that as a shrewd negotiator, Trump has been working on China’s President Xi, for example, in Chicago and all through the campaign. Talk of slapping 10 to 20 percent tariffs across the board and 60 percent on China is his opening gambit for negotiations, should he win the election. He thinks as a negotiating businessman all the time, not as a politician, they said. In the old days, there would have been comments on poker faces, hole cards and bluffs.
That might come as a shock to a world used to America shipping weapons to Israel or Ukraine, complete with pronouncements as to what targets and locations the weapons can be used, lacking only details as to launch dates and GPS target coordinates.
The other key issue discussed was deficits. Micklethwait repeated the mantra leftist economists -- and nearly two-thirds of the 40 or 50 economists the Journal surveyed -- have been repeating that Trump’s tax cuts would boost the deficit, more so than Harris’ policies. Many of them take the same static figures approach the CBO does: subtract the revenue from reduced tax rates from the same revenue as last year and scream “reduced revenue forever.”
Apparently, leftist economists think the same way leftists in general think. There is no such thing as incentive or normal peoples’ or businesses’ response to incentive, no economic growth from people working harder to make more money when they are allowed to keep more of their own money. Tax cuts have revved up the economy every time they have been tried, from Coolidge, to JFK to Reagan to Trump 45. And economists don’t have to study dusty tomes in the library stacks. Look at the figures at the top of this column.
It happened again.
See why we think maybe ideology is coloring some economists’ thinking?
This is serious beyond the results of this election. Short of some little green men landing from Mars and dropping off a spaceship-load of gold we can have tax-free, the only way we are going to dig out of $35 trillion in debt is to grow our economy. If some of the economists don’t understand that, we have to make sure the citizen/voters understand it.
Oh, and by the way. Trump’s explanation of his positions drew a standing ovation from the Chicago economists as a finale.
Fancy that.
Next time: More on daffy economists and trade policy.
Data sources:
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