Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists, all avowed liberals, have launched a partisan attack on Donald Trump on the eve of the first presidential debate.
in The letter released WednesdayEconomists have argued that former President Donald Trump could stoke inflation if he wins the presidential election in November and implements his economic plans. President Joe Biden or the debate moderators are likely to cite the letter during Thursday night’s debate.
“Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has fallen surprisingly quickly, and are rightly worried that Donald Trump will reignite it with a fiscally irresponsible budget,” the economists claim without evidence.
Indeed, polls show Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with Biden’s handling of the inflation crisis. A YouGov poll conducted in June found that economist It was found that 60 percent of the public disapproved, while only 31 percent supported the bill.
The Trump campaign slammed the letter, pointing out that Biden’s excessive spending is one of the main causes of the current inflation problem.
“The American people don’t need some worthless, out-of-touch Nobel Prize winner telling them which president put more money in their pockets. President Trump built the strongest economy in American history. In just three years, Joe Biden’s out-of-control spending has created the worst inflation crisis in generations,” said Caroline Leavitt, national spokeswoman for the Trump campaign.
Brian Sullivan, host of CNBC’s evening news show “The Last Call,” called the letter an example of the political “weaponization” of the economy.
Will the economic report be weaponized in the run-up to the 2024 election? SurreyCNBC I will explain. pic.twitter.com/DM2M0MzOx2
— Last Call (@LastCallCNBC) June 26, 2024
Among the signatories were Columbia University’s Joseph Stiglitz and Yale University’s Robert Shiller. Notably, one of the signatories, George A. Akerlof, is the wife of Biden’s Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen.
These so-called experts were conspicuously silent when the Biden Administration’s reckless spending caused the worst inflation in 40 years, and now they want us to believe their crystal ball predicting economic disaster under Trump.
The letter repeats a now-debunked complaint made by many economists during the Trump era that tariffs would lead to higher consumer prices, even as inflation remained extremely low during Trump’s presidency and regularly stayed below the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.
Meanwhile, under Biden, the U.S. is struggling with persistent inflation and the Federal Reserve is keeping interest rates at their highest in the past 20 years. Though it has subsided from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022, Americans are pessimistic about the economy and believe high inflation will continue. But these same economists want to preemptively blame Trump, who has not been in office for years.
Many of these Nobel laureates support further spending by the Biden administration. Supported They argued that a massive economic stimulus package and infrastructure investment would lead to long-term growth and reduce inflationary pressures. None of them loudly endorsed the views of prominent economists such as Larry Summers and Olivier Blanchard (both liberals) who correctly warned that Biden’s excessive spending would lead to inflation.
Stiglitz and the other laureates’ letters did not include specific criticism of Trump’s economic policies, which include raising tariffs on products from China and other countries that continue unfair trade practices that hurt U.S. manufacturing. Trump has also promised to extend the personal tax cuts that have significantly reduced taxes for most U.S. taxpayers.
But he also offered plenty of praise for President Joe Biden’s economic policies, from the Inflation Control Act to subsidies for Green New Deal manufacturing projects.
“During his first four years in office, Joe Biden has signed into law significant investments in the U.S. economy, including infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, and climate change,” the letter said. “These investments are likely to increase productivity and economic growth, reduce long-term inflationary pressures, and facilitate the clean energy transition.”
While most Americans believe Trump is a better steward of the U.S. economy than Biden, the liberal economists who signed the letter agreed that Biden’s policies are “far superior.”
“While we each have different views on the details of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic policies are far superior to Donald Trump’s,” they wrote.
“We know the American people cannot afford another four years of the Biden economy. If President Trump returns to the White House, he will return to pro-growth, pro-energy, pro-jobs policies to lower inflation, make gas cheap again, and improve life for all Americans,” Leavitt replied.
