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It’s happened again. Recently, 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists wrote an open letter saying:[President] Biden’s economic policies are far superior [President] Trump [sic]As with many recent Democratic talking points, the main argument is that a Trump reelection could actually lead to faster inflation, ignoring the fact that inflation never materially exceeded 2% under Trump and that President Biden has presided over the highest inflation in the past 40 years.
Economics claims to be a science and prides itself on intellectual rigor and evidence-based evaluation, but just as campus protests have lifted the veil on the militant, fact-free academic culture that pervades many American universities, the recent record of political advocacy from academic economists serves as a stark reminder of why Americans have come to disdain this dismal science.
The contrast between President Trump and President Biden’s economic record could not be starker. President Trump’s record of tax reform and deregulation has led the American economy to the fastest real wage growth in a generation. Real incomes increased by about 10 percent from 2017 to 2019, and real wages have grown fastest among low-income workers.
Top economists say Trump will bring economic disaster — and they said the same thing in 2016
The Biden Administration’s massive spending and regulatory restraints on the supply side of the economy have created an insidious and persistent inflation that is eroding Americans’ finances and purchasing power. The inflation-adjusted median income of American households has fallen by $2,080 since 2020. In contrast, median real income increased by $4,400 in 2019 alone, the largest single-year increase on record.
Americans’ dissatisfaction with Biden economics is not due to social media or bad press, but to their lived experience of improved living standards under President Trump and economic hardship under President Biden.
Thirteen of these Nobel laureates also signed a 2021 letter in support of the American Rescue Plan and Biden’s broader economic policies, which have caused inflation to spike, peaking at 9.1% in June 2022. The first signatories of both letters were Nobel laureates in 2001, Janet Yellen, President Biden’s Treasury SecretaryThis is a clear political statement, washed and sanctioned by economics experts.
The further politicization of economic “science” is an unwelcome development for a discipline that should be focused on rebuilding its credibility in the wake of recent economic policy missteps.
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Economists have consistently discredited themselves by raising false alarms about President Trump’s policies. In 2020, more than 700 economists, including several Nobel Prize winners, penned a letter arguing that President Biden’s economic policies would be better for the U.S. economy.
Similarly, a group of 370 economists, including eight Nobel Prize winners, warned in November 2016 that a Trump administration poses “unique dangers … to the nation’s prosperity.”
As you know, under President Trump, real total household net worth increased by 28%, and for the bottom 50% of households, it increased by over 120%. Under President Biden, real household net worth has stagnated, increasing so far by just 2% overall and 16% for the bottom 50% of households. Clearly, much of the economics profession is guided by political ideology rather than dispassionate analysis.
The further politicization of economic “science” is an unwelcome development for a discipline that should be focused on rebuilding its credibility in the wake of recent economic policy missteps. Contrary to popular expectations from many economists, it was not inflation that was temporary, but their credibility.
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Harry Truman is said to have wanted a “one-handed economist” because every economist he knew seemed to want the best of both worlds: “on the one hand… but on the other hand…”
Economists today seem to have the opposite problem: their convictions far exceed their knowledge or their powers of prediction. Given their recent record of motivated reasoning, the real wonder is that anyone would take their latest pronouncements seriously, other than as partisan gimmickry.
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