What, specifically, will Trump do to 'fix' the economy?
The economy was a major issue in the campaign. And that is the usual case in presidential elections.
However, in 2024 the economy is in great shape. Two key lingering problems are prices and interest rates. High prices were triggered mostly by the pandemic. They spiked due to supply chain issues and suppliers using the pandemic as an excuse to raise prices. There are still suppliers who are charging artificially inflated prices but the market will take care of those naturally. Other than that, prices will always rise over time unless inflation was 0%. High interest rates are lowering naturally and these are a function of the Fed, not the PotUS. The factors influencing the decisions to raise or lower interest rates are largely out of the control of a PotUS.
So outside of prices and interest rates, let's look at the state of our economy. The GDP is growing and healthy. Wages are in good shape. Unemployment is at a normal rate. Inflation is at a normal rate. We are a net exporter of fossil fuel energy. We are exporting record levels of domestic crude.
So what, specifically, is Trump going to 'fix' in our economy?
Is Trump going to make the stock market continue to break record highs?
Is Trump going to magically reduce consumer prices?
Is Trump going to actually fund his programs from excessive tariffs ... and, on top of that, not spike consumer prices?
The PotUS does not control the economy; we have a market economy. That means prices (among other factors) are a function of supply and demand. The PotUS cannot magically make prices across the board reduce but that is apparently what the electorate believes he can do.
So what is wrong with the economy and the direction it is moving right now and, if you identify what is wrong, how exactly do you think Trump will 'fix' it?
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What, specifically, is wrong with the economy and the direction it is moving right now and, if you identify what is wrong, how exactly do you think Trump will 'fix' it?
He is not going to fix the economy. He is going to break it.
This fantastical view that Trump is somehow going to cause the economy to get "better" belies the truth of the classical indicators of economic health listed in the article. That is, the economy is already cooking along. His planned direction as a disruptor of normality is not usually seen as being economically stimulating. The planned greatest deportation will rock the housing and food markets. If, as he says he plans on doing, he extinguishes the jobs of many bureaucrats, that will create a massive spike in unemployment. All of these losses will contribute to a ripple effect of job losses throughout the economy.
Look at his history as a business person. Just as he has done on many occasions, Trump will fuck it all up and blame someone else.
As you stated, there isn't A whole lot wrong with the current economy, but believe there soon will be, via that same A whole. High prices were not the result of some Biden policy. With Trump's closed mind set, anything he does will be sure to generate more wealth for those that need it the least, cause it is the nature of the beast, and on the poor and middle class, again the wealthy will feast and prosper, cause with the malleable minds he adds to the roster, each one a representative imposter, and not an example of imposter syndrome,yet still a sin, so dumb, have become his constituency, and unbelievable, how so many still don't see
I have with good reason a bad feeling. This country will not be healing.
According to Trump he is going to lower taxes, cut government waste, rid ourselves of many gov’t departments, education, EPA etc. get rid of DEI and most everything that he doesn’t like.
Which of the above will help the economy is up for debate, if any at all.
If he lowers taxes, people will spend more. That is good for the economy (within limits). But the thing is, the economy is already healthy. So what problem is Trump fixing?
If he cuts government waste that is good for the nation's health and could help move closer to balancing the budget. He will not accomplish that, but it would be a good thing.
Ultimately, a key factor in Trump's election was that he would 'fix' the economy. So I ask Trump supporters what is broken and how will Trump fix it?
unfortunately, the best thing mr art of the deal could do to sustain a booming US economy, he has once again inherited, is a ToS violation to even mention it. I anticipate he'll default to the rwnj SOP ...
So, just like last time, pretty much?
Although him allowing/letting co-vid run amok while pretending 'nothing to see here' is what brought the economy to the brink in the first place
It's amusing that those who blather on and on about socialism, Communism, Marxism, and the evils of command economies are begging for one now, from a man whom they associate with the successes of capitalism.
“It's amusing that those who blather on and on about socialism, Communism, Marxism, and the evils of command economies are begging for one now…”
The focus on ‘isms’ blinds them into believing, through their myopic lens, that his attempts to manipulate prices are in any way attainable.
Time will tell, time will most certainly tell.
I‘ve been asking NT's "conservatives" for policy ideas for ten years. Zero. Nada. Zilch.
Nothing.
So I wish you luck.
Tax cuts and tarrifs.
Of course.
Along with a wand of good, supple wood.
Of course.
The question for Trump supporters is "what specifically is wrong with the economy?" and "how will Trump fix it?".
he's already taking credit for the economy as it is now ...
I don't think that you will find too many of the Trump supporters frequenting this article, unfortunately.
Clearly, because the economy is in good shape. They cannot argue based on facts since the facts are against them.
Bottom line, Trump voters who voted for Trump (at least in part) because of 'the economy' were duped into thinking the economy is bad and that Trump will magically fix whatever they felt was bad.
The two factors of the economy that are currently bad are prices and interest rates. Neither of these can be fixed by a PotUS.
Are you suggesting that the PotUS has no influence on either?
The word I used was 'fixed'. Let's stick with that.
A PotUS cannot fix a problem of consumer prices being too high across the board nor can a PotUS fix a problem of interest rates being too high.
One who votes for a PotUS thinking that he (or she) can fix those items has a very flawed understanding.
Nothing. It's bubbling along quite nicely.
But MAGA will "fix" it.
Under the Biden administration the heavy task of raising up the economy after Trump's disastrous handling of Covid is nothing short of remarkable. As always Republicans want to tear down and destroy any progress a Democrat makes. Whether tearing down ACA/Obamacare that helped millions of Americans or tearing down American families by failure to renew the Child Tax Credit, tear it down is all Republicans know. Tear down the enormous boom in American manufacturing and jobs created rebuilding American infrastructure that the Burden administration created. Bush spent like a drunk sailor destroying the Clinton surplus and booming job market many times invoking 9/11 as a pretext while ignoring better economic plans. If Republicans can't tear it down they lie in order to falsely claim credit for Democrat accomplishments.
Tarrifs and tax cuts. America will be great again..
......again
My feelings are pretty much the same which I tried to express before seeing this - awesome - just regarding co-vid though - but the rest - so true.
Not a single Trump supporter yet to explain what is wrong with the economy and how Trump will fix what is wrong.
sorry, posted my comment literally 25 seconds after yours, but asz usual, forgot my sarc tag
They'd have to understand Econ 101.
Boy, that's odd, no one from the right is answering....
we'll probably have to wait until monday. saturday is gun show day and there's church tomorrow ...
family get togethers looking for hot dates tonight that they can repent tomorrow...
I know, he will stop DEI in schools so the savings on books for students on that subject will save the US $100,000 and we can apply that to the additional debt that he will add to the already yuuuge deficit.
I knew that if I looked long enough I would find something.
Just wait until the American people who live paycheck to paycheck and those on or almost on welfare discover that they will have to pay an extra thousands of dollars a year that they don't have on necessities because of Trump's intended massive tariffs.
There are lots of links on the internet that predict that.
I just read an article that states that Trump will inherit the best economy in the last 50 years.
Well people can label it as they see fit, but there simply is no fact-based denying that in terms of the defining characteristics of an economy, ours is in very good shape.
And apparently Trump supporters can only deem it bad yet cannot explain why the economy is bad (truthfully) or how Trump will 'fix' whatever they deem bad.
Unless they don't feel it is, maybe?...
Feeling are irrelevant.
Name what is wrong with the economy and then state how Trump will 'fix' the specific items you named.
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Yeah, parts of the economy is doing well but other parts not so much. I said before Biden dropped out that a lot of people were going to vote on kitchen table issues and that was definitely part of the election. When people are worried about putting food on their tables or keeping a roof over their heads, they just aren't going to feel particularly rosy about the economy. About all they can hope for is that wages start to catch up.
Name the parts that are bad in this economy and then state how Trump will 'fix' the specific items you named.
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As the members posting here before you suggested, Trump supporters cannot name the specific problems in the economy and how Trump would 'fix' those problems.
You are demonstrating this quite well.
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Your feeble attempts at an argument.
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The only way the word "fix" can be used in relation to Trump and the economy is "the fix is in". He most certainly wants to emulate how Putin gets a piece of everything going on in the Russian economy.
It's fascinating that - for at least a decade - our NT "conservatives" (I use that word to avoid a ticket) have never given us a single policy statement.
What's interesting and telling is by now I know from experience that some conservatives do little to nothing. . . without a financial interest involved. Ten years, eh. One could wonder what is it some conservatives being here days in and days out - GAIN/SEEK.
Well, let's cast bread upon the water. The author asks two questions: what are the problems in the economy and how will Trump fix them? The attempt to shoehorn discussion into prices and interest rates (immediate effects) doesn't really capture the situation. Real people, in the real world, view the economy in terms of past, present, and future. The recent past is clearly understood and fresh in memory. The present is always fuzzy because of estimates, unknown risks, and level of resiliency in the economy. Long range weather forecasting is an easier task than economic forecasting.
First the problems. Inflation can grossly distort measured GDP. And distortions of only a fraction of a percentage point can reverberation through the economy in unpredictable ways. According to FRED, real GDP has grown from $21,058 billion in Q1 2021 to $23,386 billion in Q3 2024. But is that a healthy level of growth? A simple test would be looking at buying power using an inflation calculator. According to the calculator, we would need a real GDP of $25,511 today to match the buying power of the $21,058 billion GDP in 2021. So, the growth in GDP has fallen behind the loss in buying power. From this simple measure, the economy is not doing as well today as it was in 2021.
There are other factors influencing public perception of the economy, too. Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness sends a message that education is now a drag on the economy that requires government intervention. We have seen labor unrest over the last 4 years over pay and benefits. (There really have been labor strikes with demands for rather startling pay increases and job protections. Not indicators of a great economy.) Inflation in food and housing costs have overwhelmed pay increases; any good feelings over income gains quickly fade away in grocery aisles. (That creates a feeling that it is impossible to get ahead.)
Beyond feelings and emotional responses to prices, news that the US economy has lost resilience is a nagging concern for the future. The loss of a single food processing plant or manufacturing facility can cause major disruptions in supply and wild surges in price. People are no longer just living from paycheck to paycheck, they are now required to live crisis to crisis. The country couldn't supply itself with baby formula because one manufacturing facility was lax on sanitation. Any disruptions in international shipping threatens to shut down large sectors of the economy. Our economy has become so fragile that it isn't possible to plan for the future.
On top of all of those problems, the government continues to impose regulatory obstacles hindering economic expansion. And the government has become the greatest single competitor for investment capital in the US. The government doesn't actually print money with deficit spending. Those deficits must be paid for with sales of bonds. The government must take money out of the economy to spend more than tax revenue provides. The government debt represents money that is no longer in the economy. Public debt really does impede private investment and becomes a drag on the economy.
Inflation is not a measure of wealth. In fact, inflation devalues wealth. Inflation indicates the economy is spending more than it can earn. Trade deficits contribute to inflation by encouraging spending and discouraging wealth creation and savings. Easy credit devalues future wealth and savings making economic planning difficult if not pointless. And inflation means a past economy always looks better than the current economy because, in past, fewer dollars were required to buy the same goods and services. Our government, the financial sector, and monetary regulators have imposed a constant inflation onto the economy so the future will never look as bright as the past.
There is no shoehorning; prices have been a major complaint driving the electorate. The question however is what are the problems in the economy (as you see it) and how you see Trump 'fixing' the problems you perceive.
You just transferred the problems resulting from inflation to be a problem of the GDP. Okay, let's explore that. Growing the GDP in itself does not mitigate inflation. What mitigates inflation is growing supply of goods to match demand. So let's get more specific than merely growing the GDP and focus on what your transfer of problem really means. It means companies will need to produce more per demand (in the cases where demand is not sufficiently being met) so that prices get to what people consider to be fair. Given that, what will Trump do to ensure companies increase their production so that they sell more at a lower price?
Name the obstacles and state what Trump will do to stop these obstacle AND (the intended effect) ensure economic expansion (back to increasing supply).
This paragraph is just rambling about what inflation is.
So you have identified prices as the key problem and blame lack of production (supply) as the root cause. So what will Trump do to cause prices to lower to what the public perceives to be fair?
I've shown that today's GDP doesn't have the same buying power as had the GDP of Jan. 2021. This economy sucks because it is not producing enough growth to overcome cumulative effect of price increases.
You've used GDP to suggest the economy is healthy. But a simple inflation computation (use the link) shows the economy is not healthy. I didn't transfer the problem to the GDP -- the GDP is a symptom of the problem and I have discussed the problem in that manner.
And you've conveniently ignored the other problems I discussed.
Refer to my next comment @15. The issues are complex and require more discussion than can be included in a single comment. And I am not allowed to reply to myself to keep the discussion together.
A major obstacle created by government is competition for investment capital. The Federal government cannot deficit spend without taking money out of the economy. The government really must sell bonds to cover its deficits; the government is not using credit to obtain revenue for deficit spending. The current Federal debt is almost $36 trillion. That is $36 trillion has been taken out of the economy and sitting on a shelf, unavailable for use. That $36 trillion cannot be used for anything other than balancing the government's accounting books.
The government sucking $1 trillion out of the economy to cover a deficit spent on perishable investments won't contribute to economic expansion or future resilience.
After a rather abbreviated presentation of problems in the economy, it's now time to turn attention to what Trump 'is going to' fix in the economy. That's a loaded question because another crisis can disrupt the best laid plans of pirates. So, the realistic answer to the question addresses what Trump could do to fix the problems in the economy. And Trump has talked about tools he could use and what Trump could try to achieve with those tools.
Trump has talked about using tariffs and taxes to boost wealth creation and resilience in the economy. Trump has also talked about reducing government competition for investment capital and savings.
Trade deficits do not contribute to resilience or wealth creation. Yes, US capital can be invested offshore to supply the US market but that would only create wealth for the investors. That offshore wealth cannot be repatriated to the US without paying taxes. (Yes, taxing repatriated profits works the same way as tariffs.) So, any wealth created offshore won't be broadly distributed in the US and the government will compete for a sizeable share of wealth brought back to the economy. The only way to create wealth that can be broadly distributed in the US economy is to manufacture and produce in the US.
At present, our economic underpinnings to produce things cannot compete in the US economy which means our country cannot produce wealth for its own people. And trade deficits really do contribute to inflation by transferring domestic wealth offshore, lessening the country's ability to save, and increasing reliance on credit to augment income. Buying on credit has a much larger future cost (inflationary cost) than buying from savings. Credit creates a drag on creating wealth for the future. Trump could address this drag on the economy by using a mix of tariffs and tax incentives to encourage investments in domestic production capacity. Taxing imports while not taxing domestic production makes manufacturing in the US more economically attractive. Tax incentives for STEM jobs created in the US becomes more affordable for domestic business and more attractive for investment capital.
The Federal government really has become the single largest competitor for investment capital in the US. Government deficits require selling bonds to generate revenue. Selling bonds takes money out of the economy because the bonds are not paid for with credit. (Using debt to buy debt typically is a losing proposition.) A trillion dollar deficit must be covered by taking a trillion dollars out of the economy. Ostensibly the government uses deficits to concentrate and leverage capital for investment in the economy. But using deficit spending to pay for perishable investments rather than durable investments short circuits the capability of the economy to create wealth. Instant gratification won't deliver long term stability or resilience. Trump could address government competition for investment capital by reducing government expenditures on investments that do not contribute to future economic resilience or stability. Government deficits invested in the wrong things are extraordinarily damaging to the economy's ability to produce broadly distributed wealth. Government redistribution cannot replace a healthy economy that produces and distributes wealth to the people.
Germany dominates the EU economy with manufacturing and exports. China has emerged as a world power challenging the dominance of the United States with manufacturing and exports. Even the United States grew to dominate the world economy by investing in production, manufacturing, and exports that changed the 18th and 19th century mercantile global economy built upon exploitation and trade. The United States becoming a trade beggar in the global economy completely ignores the history, traditions, and strengths of the United States. We've turned our backs on what made the United States a world power. Donald Trump could fix that. Whether or not Trump will fix that remains an open question.