Not long ago, Republicans expected to focus heavily on the economy in the 2024 elections. Reality has gotten in the way.
It was just a few weeks ago that The New York Times reported that the US labor market is “as healthy as it has ever been” – as in US history – and described recent economic growth as “robust.” A few days later, Heather Long of The Washington Post explained in a column that “by almost any measure, the U.S. economy is in good shape. The growth is strong. Unemployment is low. Inflation has fallen again. More importantly, many Americans are getting significant pay increases, and middle-class wealth has risen to record levels. We are experiencing one of the best economic years of many people’s lives.”
The same day, Politico described the status quo as “a dream economy.”
But there is also an international dimension to this. The Wall Street Journal reported:
The US is increasingly leading the world’s advanced economies, with a wave of investment paying off in higher productivity and wages. The International Monetary Fund highlights these divergent trajectories in its latest global scorecard, published on Tuesday. In what has become something of a trend, the IMF has upgraded the outlook for both US and global growth, but more so for the former.
Among the world’s richest countries, the IMF not only considers the U.S. economy to be the strongest in the world, but also expects Americans to see the fastest growth in the world as 2024 comes to a close.
Officials at the IMF aren’t the only ones who have noticed: The Economist, a leading British publication, recently described the U.S. economy as “the envy of the world,” adding that the U.S. economy has “let other rich countries down left’. dust.”
Around this time four years ago, Donald Trump told his supporters that Democratic policies would “unleash an economic disaster of epic proportions” and force the country “into a depression.”
Oops.
The bigger question, of course, is not just about the status quo, but also about the future. The US economy is strong now, but what about the future?
It turns out that 23 Nobel Prize-winning economists endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump in a joint letter released this week, explaining that the Republican agenda “would lead to higher prices, bigger deficits, and greater inequality.”
“Simply put, Harris’ policies will result in stronger economic performance, with economic growth that is more robust, sustainable and equitable,” the letter said.
The Nobel Prize winners are not alone. The Wall Street Journal also recently asked economists a related question and found that most economists think “inflation, interest rates and deficits would be higher” under Trump’s agenda than under Harris’s.
“Look, you may not like Donald Trump personally, but you will like his policies a lot better than those of Kamala Harris,” Governor Brian Kemp said recently. The Georgia Republican added that voters are simply “making a business decision.”
Given everything we know now, those focused on the economy and business decisions should rally behind Harris as soon as possible, hoping Trump loses.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
