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For all of the talk going on in the news right now, our research is clear: Independent Americans consistently rank affordability as their top issue. Yes, Americans are concerned about our democratic institutions, border security, and free speech, but everyday issues like the cost of groceries reigns supreme.
With this in mind, it’s puzzling to see neither of the two candidates adopt a coherent and cohesive economic policy stance. Instead, we’re hearing proposals being floated around seemingly arbitrarily, from removing the tax on tips, to a Harris-proposed $50,000 tax break for small businesses.
This random assortment of economic proposals is squarely aimed at winning over independent or undecided voters. But rather than presenting bipartisan platforms that would solve the issues at hand and are attractive to independents, they’re instead attempting to better their political opponent for short-term gain.
In August, Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal wrote, “It’s too soon to predict the winner of November’s presidential election, but not too soon to predict the loser: economics.”
Now that we’re less than a month away from the election, this statement still holds true.
Trump’s economic track record might have been solid as President. Still, he’s leaving much to be desired in the future as he fails to articulate specifics about his economic plans. On September 21st, Trump was asked specifically about how he would reduce prices. But instead of diving into key policy initiatives and plans, he responded by claiming that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris was incapable of answering such a question.
We’re also witnessing an arms race of sorts, where both candidates appear to be eager to see who can give away more tax breaks.
Drawing from the same article by Greg Ip, he writes:
Harris has proposed a $6,000 tax credit for the parents of a newborn child. Not to be outbid, Trump’s running mate JD Vance has pitched a $5,000 credit for every child, no matter how rich the parents. The fiscal arms race doesn’t stop there; Harris is promising a $25,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers. Trump would end income taxes on Social Security benefits.
These proposed tax breaks aren’t inherently bad, but there’s no denying the fact that they’re expensive. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projects that Kamala Harris’s economic promises will cost about $1 trillion over a decade. Meanwhile, Trump’s Social Security tax repeal would likely cost $1.6 trillion, if not more.
And this is the major issue with the two candidates when it comes to economic policy: short sightedness.
Remember when Donald Trump was calling for a second round of stimulus checks of $2,000 in December of 2020? Well, Democratic President soon followed suit and made stimulus checks foundational to his plan to jumpstart the post-Covid economy.
The result: crippling inflation at its highest rate since the 1970s.
This shouldn’t be a shock to anyone. Simply throwing money at a problem doesn’t solve the issue.
These economic proposals by both Harris and Trump might be good politically. In fact, they may ultimately be the reason one of them ends up winning the White House. But President Biden’s last four years should offer them a cautionary tale: they may come back to haunt a future president.
Independent voters tend to be younger. In fact, they overwhelmingly skew towards the Millennial generation. And here’s the hard truth: yes, this election is important. But every it’s impossible for every election to be “The most important election of your life.”
Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are in a “win now” phase. It’s not their fault for thinking like this necessarily. They’re confined by the electoral structure with which they operate. But younger independents would like to start thinking about the big picture of economics, rather than what can win the most votes for this election cycle.
We care about affordability. We’d like to buy a house one day. We have investments in our 401K’s and our Roth IRA’s. These things all matter. Simply spending non-stop will likely hurt our longer-term goals significantly more than the temporary short-term gain these proposals will offer.
Our candidates need to start thinking in a far more comprehensive way, relying on sound economic advice and market considerations.
The last four years have taught us the problem with reactionary economic policy.
