Harris is playing a nostalgic song
Four years ago, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took control of the White House. lie and exercise Regarding the economic situation under the Donald Trump administration.
We had just experienced the steepest economic downturn in U.S. history, largely due to pandemic lockdowns. However, by the fall of 2020, the economy was recovering rapidly. Growth, which plummeted in the second quarter of 2020, rebounded much better than almost anyone expected, with the economy expanding at an annual rate of 33.4 percent.
This was the fastest growth in data since 1947 by a wide margin. Although establishment economists and pundits scoffed, Larry Kudlow predicts a 'V-shaped' recoveryPresident Trump's chief economic adviser, that's exactly what unfolded. The economy continued to expand rapidly in the final quarter of this year, growing at an annual rate of 4.3%.
Not only has the U.S. economy recovered; Our recovery has been stronger than other developed countries They were also dealing with a pandemic and lockdown. The emergency economic program implemented by the Trump administration with bipartisan support in Congress was a huge success.
Still, Biden and Harris persisted. The patently false claim that the economy has collapsed And what they claimed was caused by President Trump's mismanagement of the pandemic. They could never explain what might have happened if they had acted differently — at times suggesting that President Trump should have imposed stricter lockdowns and longer economic restrictions. Except what you alluded to – much less how the economy was doing.
This created a dilemma for Biden and Harris when they arrived at the White House. enable economic continuity Recovery under normalized fiscal policy That would be tantamount to admitting that they misled the public about the economic situation. Moreover, Democratic leadership had constituencies and agendas to pursue, and the crisis appeared to provide a historic opportunity to significantly expand government.
So Biden and Harris $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan As soon as they step into the Oval Office. The government had planned to follow this up with trillions of dollars in additional spending, but it stalled when faced with the reality of rising deficits and inflation even as the economy grew and unemployment fell.
Mr. Harris of Pittsburgh: A persistent lie
Therefore, the following is not surprising. Harris is trying to implement the same strategy against Trump. this year. In a speech at the Pittsburgh Economic Club this week, Ms. Harris again ravaged Mr. Donald Trump's economic record, calling out the Biden-Harris policy (which has changed little substantively but now includes her own broader (renamed as Economic Vision) as a realist. A pro-business program to revive America's industrial strength.
“From our nation's earliest days, America's economic strength has been tied to its industrial strength,” Harris said in what she billed as her major economic campaign speech Wednesday. “The same is true today, so I recommit our nation to global leadership in the areas that will define the next century.”
The problem for Harris is that this will be far less realistic in 2024 than it was four years ago. For one thing, We now have an economic record created by Democratic policies.. The regime will be characterized by inflation rising to its highest level in 40 years and remaining high for many years to come. But to that we can also add the notable failure of the Biden-Harris version of industrial policy to achieve any tangible success.
Harris has frequently claimed that the economy has added 800,000 manufacturing jobs since Biden became president. But it's a magic trick. in fact, Manufacturing employment increased by just 147,000 people From the pre-pandemic situation. Manufacturing employment has essentially stagnated over the past two years, even though the Biden-Harris administration poured billions of dollars in subsidies into the sector through the Suppression of Inflation Act and the CHIPS Act. Real average weekly wages for manufacturing workers have fallen by 2.7% since Biden and Harris took office.
And things are only getting worse. In the past 3 months, Manufacturing industry lost 36,000 jobs. The Fed's recent decision to cut interest rates by 50 basis points was driven in part by concerns about continued weakness in the labor market, particularly for factory workers.
It's no wonder why manufacturing employment has stagnated and is now declining. The Institute for Supply Management's Purchasing Managers Index shows: This sector has been in continuous contraction for two years. Over the past two years, orders for core capital goods have not increased at all. The August 2024 numbers reported Thursday are actually slightly lower than the August 2022 numbers. Compared to the first eight months of last year, orders for core products increased by just 0.3%. Since the beginning of the year, overall orders for durable goods have decreased by 1.3% from the previous year.
Harris also returned to her habit of lying about Trump's economy. she claimed that Interview with MSNBC's Stephanie Ruhl He repeated a falsehood from his Pittsburgh speech that manufacturing jobs had fallen by 200,000 under the Trump administration even before the pandemic. in fact, Factory employment was up 414,000 before the pandemic.. And even with the pandemic included, the total population decline under the Trump administration did not reach 200,000 people.
Another of Harris' favorite lies involves a report from Goldman Sachs. The researchers say growth would be slightly lower under Trump than under Harris, primarily because increased border security would limit population growth. In her Pittsburgh speech, Harris predicted that the economy would shrink and fall into recession under the Trump administration. She liked the lie so much that she repeated it in an interview on MSNBC.
Could Ms. Harris lie again to get into the White House? Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden are leading what most Americans consider a rotten economy, despite low unemployment. And most Americans now look back warmly on the prosperity of the Trump era. So, Perhaps this time, deception will not pave the way to power.
