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It’s a safe bet the economy will feature prominently in Thursday’s presidential debate, the first between two phenomenally unpopular candidates in a campaign everyone wishes were over already.
What to expect: There will be talk about taxes and tariffs, jobs and immigration, and fending off China.
Most of all, Donald Trump will say everything was better when he was in charge and try to jackhammer President Biden on inflation like a utility worker tearing up Newbury Street to fix a busted water pipe. Biden will blame corporate price gouging, trumpet low unemployment and high stock prices, and argue that Trump’s policies would croak the economy.
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A hard job: The odds are Trump will put Biden on the defensive early.
Trying to explain why inflation spiked in 2021-2022 is tough. It requires more than an over-rehearsed sound bite, the lingua franca of American political debates.
“If you’re explaining, you’re losing,” said Ronald Reagan.
Step back: While the rate of inflation has slowed significantly, it remains above the 2 percent target the Federal Reserve deems preferable.
Tougher for Biden’s reelection prospects, prices are more than 20 percent higher than before the pandemic, as measured by the Consumer Price Index. That has overshadowed his legislative wins on infrastructure, climate change, and bolstering the strategically essential computer chip industry.
Blame game: Republicans argue that Biden’s stimulus-on-steroids spending ignited inflation. But other forces had a bigger impact.
They included supply chain disruptions, worker shortages, the war in Ukraine, and pent-up consumer demand — nearly all stemming from the pandemic, and all responsible for soaring prices in countries across the globe.
What the public thinks: Americans are split on who’s responsible for high prices, with 41 percent blaming government spending and 39 percent tagging greedy corporations, according to a new Axios Vibes survey by The Harris Poll.
- Republicans were twice as likely as Democrats (56 percent vs. 26 percent) to blame the government.
- On the broader question of which candidate has the better economic plan, registered voters picked Trump over Biden, 43 percent to 37 percent, in a Reuters/Ipsos poll released this week.
Comparing priorities: The candidates are far apart on most issues, and the economy is no exception. A few examples:
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Taxes
- Biden has a long wish-list, topped by hiking a host of taxes on corporations and the wealthy and boosting tax credits for low- and middle-income families.
- Trump’s most concrete proposal is to extend his 2017 tax cuts (which are set to expire in 2025). He’s also mused about excluding tips from personal income taxes or even eliminating the income tax.
Trade
- Biden has said he would keep Trump-imposed tariffs on $360 billion worth of Chinese goods while raising levies on another $18 billion of steel, aluminum, green tech, and medical equipment.
- Trump has said he would slap a 10 percent tariff on all US imports (60 percent on Chinese goods) and use the money to replace income tax revenue.
Immigration
- Biden’s recent crackdown on the Mexico border included provisions to suspend asylum claims if daily border crossings exceed an average of 2,500 over a week, and more quickly remove illegal migrants deemed national security or public safety risks.
- Trump has said he would once again require migrants from countries other than Mexico to wait in Mexico while their asylum cases are resolved. He wants to reinstate his policy that permitted US officials to quickly expel immigrants. And he has also promised the largest roundup and deportation of illegal immigrants in US history.
What economists say: Traditional economic theory says a tariff on all imports, combined with shrinking the labor force by expelling millions of immigrants, would drive up consumer prices.
“While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump’s,” 16 Nobel Prize-winning economists wrote in a letter obtained this week by Axios.
Trump says his plans will make US companies more competitive and lift wages for American workers. He’s counting on voters being nostalgic for the prepandemic economy.
“Americans know the difference between the Trump economy, which was great, where everyone was doing better, and the Biden economy, where people are cashing out their 401(k)s, just to simply make ends meet,” said senior Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller.
Final thought: Barring an astoundingly bad performance by one of the candidates, the debate in Atlanta, and a second scheduled for Sept. 10, won’t change many voters’ minds.
The fight is over the undecideds, maybe 10 percent of the electorate, especially in swing states.
How many of them think Biden has ruined the economy? How many believe Trump would make things worse?
Like you, I hope we get the answer late on election night or early the next morning. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
Larry Edelman can be reached at larry.edelman@globe.com.