Top Lines: US Economy And Trade Policy | 2020 Election And Political Analysis | Impeachment | Protecting Our Elections And Disinformation | Immigration And The Border | Countering Illiberalism's Rise
Notes On 2020 - There has been lots of polling over the past few days and it tells a simple story – the Democratic race is very competitive and what happens in Nevada and South Carolina is really going to matter. Perhaps the most important development has been the slew of good polls for VP Biden in NV, SC, and other states showing him very much in the game. Tomorrow’s Nevada debate, with Mike Bloomberg on the stage, will be a significant moment. Lots of drama ahead for the Democrats.
One bit of drama we hope we don’t see again is the troubles which plagued Iowa and which may repeat in Nevada this weekend. NDN believes it would be wise for DNC Chair Tom Perez to take some concrete steps to improve his operation in the coming days, sending a clear signal that he knows he needs to do better, and regain the trust of Democrats across the country. This will be particularly important if Dems look like they are headed to a brokered convention, something which will put a much greater burden on the DNC to carry a negative message against Trump for the next 4-5 months, build a true general election operation for the nominee, and manage a divisive and challenging convention.
As for Trump, his numbers remain bad and he has not shown any kind of significant bump from his illicit acquittal. There is no doubt he is building a powerful juggernaut, which is why Dems not having a nominee until late July will be so problematic. But some perspective here please. Trump only won 2016 with the extraordinary trifecta of Russia’s enormous intervention, a left leaning third party candidate, and the Comey letter; the GOP has had three truly awful elections since including the 8.6 point win for the Dems in 2018; incumbents in the low 40s as Trump is now almost never win; and do we expect him to behave more like Reagan and less like Caligula in the coming months?
The big story with Trump remains his dangerous disregard for the rules and laws which make our democracy, and all democracies, work. In just the past few months he has solicited campaign help from a foreign nation, illegally held back information for a legitimate Congressional investigation, and corrupted the Senate Impeachment trial, and he now appears to be trying to turn the Department of Justice into an arm of his political project and campaign (something he did with the White House and State Departments in the Ukraine affair).
What worries us the most is that the latest revelations about Trump and Barr are not just corrupt and illegal, but represent an attempt by the President to replace the story of the past few years with a new, fictitious, and delusional one. It feels really crazy and dangerous - as if the President has really lost contact with the real world, becoming in every way the Mad King our Founders so feared. It remains shocking that the Senate GOPers and Barr are playing along with this destructive and out of control man.
Trump's New Budget Proposal Is Incoherent Yet Immensely Dangerous - Three years of economic policy under the Trump administration are well represented by just a few words: incoherent yet immensely dangerous. First, incoherent. The President promised that his tax cut would pay for itself and super-charge economic growth to a sustainable 3%/year. Instead, the tax cut has cost over $180 billion/year and growth has never come in at 3% or higher during his Administration (and was just 2.3% in 2019). Furthermore, Trump promised that his trade war would revitalize manufacturing and create far more jobs than during the Obama administration. Instead, his tariff policies have led to a deep manufacturing recession and job growth through his first three years is almost 40,000 jobs/month slower than during Obama's second term.
Second, immensely dangerous. As a result of Trump's attacks on Obamacare and his support for new restrictions on Medicaid access in the states, the uninsured rate has begun to rise rapidly after years of declines under Obama. In 2019, almost 8 million fewer people had health insurance than did when Trump took office in 2016. In addition, the sharp decline in pollution of almost 25% from 2009 to 2016 has rapidly reversed under Trump. As a result of his gutting of several major environmental programs such as the Clean Power Plan, emissions have actually increased by over 5% since 2016, a development that his own EPA estimates will cause 1,400 additional deaths per year in the US.
It is fitting then that the budget proposal released by the administration last week continues this trend of being implausible yet significantly harmful to the most vulnerable Americans. First, the budget proposal projects economic growth of 3.1% in 2020 and 3%+ every year up to 2024. This is a wildly unrealistic and downright laughable estimate. Growth was 2.3% in 2019, and the IMF and Fed both estimate that it will be just 2% in 2020. Furthermore, the Fed projects that growth will hit just 1.9% in 2021 and 1.8% in 2022, nowhere close to the administration's 3% estimate.
And second, the budget proposal includes significant cuts to the social programs that disproportionately help poor Americans. Trump's proposal would cut Medicaid and food stamps by almost $300 billion and reduce federal disability benefits by almost $100 billion, targeting literally sick, hungry, and disabled Americans. Furthermore, he proposes significantly cutting the budgets of critical future-looking federal departments such as the Environmental Protection Agency by 27% and the Department of Health and Human Services (which funds medical research organizations such as the CDC and NIH) by 9%. For more on NDN's work on economic and trade policy under the Trump administration, please click here.
Best,
Simon, Chris, and the rest of the NDN team
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