Atlantic - Donald Trump's Economic Plans Would Destroy the U.S. Economy [View all]

[TomCADem]

Pretty nice summary of the illogic of Trump's proposals. Too bad the media rarely covers policy, choosing instead to focus on insults and liners.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/donald-trumps-economic-plans-would-destroy-the-us-economy/ar-BBsM3lU?ocid=spartandhp

Trump has promised to make America great again. But a closer look his policy proposals, such as they are, suggests that within his first few years as president, he would more likely American recessionary again.

The problem begins with his outspoken approach to Mexican immigration. His “plan” to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants would shrink the economy by about 2 percent, according to American Action Forum (AAF), a conservative and pro-business think tank. The sudden subtraction of 7 million workers would cause an immediate shock to thousands of businesses, triggering a GDP collapse ranging from $400 billion to $600 billion in production, AAF’s analysis found, with the worst of the slump occurring in industries like construction and hospitality. "The things Donald Trump has said are utterly unworkable," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economic adviser to Senator John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign and the forum's president, told Reuters.

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Here is Trumponomics, in a sentence: Create an unnecessary economic downturn by deporting 7 million workers while cutting taxes for the rich and requiring the United States to borrow trillions of dollars from creditors, whom Trump has now threatened to cheat out of their money if he feels like it. It would be the greatest, dumbest recession in American history.

Trump’s abandonment of economic common sense is, like so much of his appeal, not an outlier position in the GOP so much as an extrapolation of his party’s recent departures from fiscal sanity. Republicans elites have responded to widening income inequality by proposing a series of escalating tax cuts for the rich. Paul Ryan, nominally the adult-elect of the party, rose to fame with tax-cut promises and draconian proposals to shrink the safety net. When interest rates were historically low and infrastructure spending was attractive, Republicans called for deficit reductions. When the recovery was still fragile, they played chicken with the debt ceiling by threatening a default until the president caved to their budget demands.