by Nick Gier
This rise in U.S. manufacturing construction is absolutely mind-blowing.
—economist Joseph Politano
The Economist, a British journal founded in 1837 to promote free markets and free trade, has called the Biden-Harris economy “the envy of the world.” It has “grown by 10% since 2020, three times the pace of seven industrialized nations” (Oct. 19, 2024). One week later the editors celebrated the American economy as “glorious.”
Obama-Biden’s Gift of 2017
In November 2017, this same journal asserted that “Trump’s apparent economic success to date mostly reflects fortunate timing.” The Obama-Biden administration gave Trump an economic growth rate of 2.3%, but Trump’s rate was the same just before the pandemic (Investopedia, 11/4/24). Biden-Harris’ economic growth is now 2.7%.
In a campaign appearance for Harris on October 11, Obama reminded the audience that Trump’s economy was “pretty good, because it was my economy. I handed over 75 straight months of job growth to him.” Obama also pointed out that Trump advisers threw away comprehensive pandemic plans that would have mitigated considerably the poor job that Trump did with COVID-19.
Trump’s $7.8 Trillion Debt
By the end of Trump’s first term, the nation was much deeper in debt. Obama-Biden left Trump with an annual budget deficit of 3.2% that he increased, primarily because of huge tax cuts, to 14.7%. The result in 2020 was $7.8 trillion more debt for the nation. The current Biden-Harris deficit has now dropped to 6.6%.
Yale economists Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Stephen Henriques assert that “Trump oversaw the largest spending deficit in any year since World War II. Full-term net spending increases under Trump were also greater than Biden-Harris, with or without pandemic relief.” The Congressional Budget Office reports that if Trump renews his 2017 tax cuts, this will add “more than $4 trillion to the federal debt over the next decade.”
The Economist declares that president-elect Trump “poses the biggest risk to America’s extraordinary economy.” The editors noted that Trump has promised so many tax cuts that the national debt might rise from its current level of 100% of Gross Domestic Product (equalizing debt and spending) to 160% by 2035. That would put us on par with Eritrea, one of Trump’s African “sh . . .-hole” countries.
Rising Incomes; Low Unemployment
Returning to Biden-Harris successes, after tax income is outpacing inflation (2.6% in recent months) and it is now an average $52,000 for each person across the nation. We have never been very good savers, but the savings rate has now doubled to 5%.
The “misery rate”—the combination of the unemployment and inflation rates—is the lowest since early 2020. One would have to go back to the late 1960s to match longer sustained unemployment rates under 4%. The Economist notes that “the workforce-participation rate for people between 25 and 54 is nearly 84%, just shy of the record high.” Biden-Harris have added a record 16 million jobs in just four years.
Black Unemployment All Time Low
Trump used to boast that Black unemployment was the lowest ever during his first administration, but it had been dropping already under Obama-Biden. It has now reached a record low of 4.7% under Biden-Harris.
Black teen unemployment has also gone down to the lowest ever. This puts the lie to the Wall Street Journal’s claim that the Biden-Harris economy is “glorious” only for the nation’s liberal elite.
High Inflation Was World-Wide
High inflation bedeviled most nations coming out of the pandemic, and the British Conservative government experienced 11% inflation. Most of that was due to COVID-19 and supply chain disruptions across the world. Completely independent from Biden-Harris, the Federal Reserve increased interest rates 17 times over two years.
Even though inflation has gone down from 9% to 3%, Kamala Harris most likely lost the election because of high prices. For example, the price of eggs in the U.S. skyrocketed, not because of Biden-Harris (absurd of course), but because avian flu wiped out 30 million chickens.
Economists estimate that only 2% of high inflation was due to deficit spending, but it was precisely this decision that saved the economy. European countries decided not to go into debt, but they have had a very slow pandemic recovery because of it.
Verified Price Gouging
Charges of price gouging were correct in some industries. The two Yale economists quoted above report: “The three largest baked-goods companies hold a market share of more than 50%, and some of them saw their net income increase by 75%. Some major fuel refiners saw net income increase by more than 1,000%. Furthermore, pharmacy benefit managers continue to see rapid profit growth at the expense of patients.”
$700 Billion for New Infrastructure
The Biden-Harris investment in the economy has taken some time to show results, and some of them will happen until after Trump takes office. As economist Joseph Politano declares: “This rise in U.S. manufacturing construction is absolutely mind-blowing. So many computer chip and related factories are about to open in January you’re not going to believe it.” Just as GOP politicians are already taking credit for the Biden-Harris projects that are already in place, Trump will declare that he “built them.”
Is Economic Data Cheating Coming?
Trump has been convicted by New York State for lying about the value of his properties. (They were not just “bookkeeping errors.”) If he goes ahead with excessive tax cuts and tariffs, what is to prevent him and his GOP allies from manipulating economic data to cover up the disaster?
The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell reminds her readers that disgraced trade representative Peter Navarro was notorious “for bullying career statisticians to cook the books in the former president’s favor.” Trump cronies, she says, have a “habit of torturing the data until it confesses.” The result will be the destruction of objective numbers that businesses rely on to make decisions,” as well as, I will add, reliable data that Congress needs to set budgets.
How Can the World Trust Trump?
Back in 2013, Argentina lost credibility in international financial markets, and the International Monetary Fund reprimanded its government for its failure to make “sufficient progress in improving the accuracy of its economic data.” The following year, The Economist refused to publish the nation’s faulty data, and its editors accused President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner of replacing “independent-minded staff” with her own people. This is exactly what Trump is doing now.
Trump has a history of fraud and deception (remember Trump “University”) and how can international leaders trust him or his allies in economics or diplomacy? For example, British authorities are now saying that if Tulsi Gabbard becomes Trump’s spy chief, they will not share intelligence with the U.S. This does not at all bode well for America’s once trusted role in world affairs.
Nick Gier of Moscow taught religion and philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years. For more on Biden-Harris’ achievements see bit.ly/3L0sZ3K. Email him at ngier006∂gmail.com.