Americans Wanted to Hear About Inflation…
John Stuart Mill once wrote that the Conservative Party in England was the “stupidest party.” In the debate in Milwaukee Wednesday night, contenders for the Republican party’s nomination for president attempted to prove they were the rightful heirs to that tradition.
Inflation is by far the top concern for Americans. In the latest Economist/YouGov survey, 25 percent of Americans say it is the top issue facing America — more than twice the closest runners-up of climate change at 11 percent, health care at 10 percent, and jobs and the economy at 10 percent. Seventy-five percent of Americans say inflation is “very important” and another 21 percent say it is “somewhat important,” making inflation an important issue for a stunning 96 percent of American adults.
What’s true about Americans broadly is even more true about Republicans and independent voters. Thirty-two percent of Republicans say inflation is the most important issue, more than three times the 10 percent who named abortion and immigration as their top issue. The category of “jobs and the economy” came in at nine percent, tied with national security.
Among independents, inflation scores as the top issue at 26 percent, far higher than climate change (at 11 percent), health care (10 percent), and jobs and the economy (nine percent). All other issues are far less important to independent voters.
A recent Pew Research poll found that inflation is considered a very big problem by 77 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. The Economist/YouGov survey has 87 percent of Republicans and 76 percent of independents saying inflation is “very important.” Another 10 percent of Republicans and 21 percent of independents describe inflation as “somewhat important.”
Inflation is also a key weakness for President Joe Biden. Just 33 percent of voters say they approve of Biden’s efforts on inflation, with 59 percent saying they disapprove. Among independents, Biden gets just a 24 percent approval rating on inflation, with a 64 percent disapproval.
Republicans—presumably the primary audience for a debate over who should get the GOP nod for the presidency—absolutely loathe Biden on inflation. Just six percent approve, with 92 percent disapproving. Eighty-four percent of Republicans say they strongly disapprove of Biden on the issue of inflation.
When MarketWatch asked its followers on Twitter—err, sorry, X—what economic issue they wanted to hear about during the first Republican debate, 61.4 percent voted for inflation. Mortgage rates—an issue closely connected to inflation—were a distant second at 16.7 percent.
The first debate in the 2024 Republican presidential primary is slated to take place Wednesday night in Milwaukee.
What economic issues do you hope to hear about during the first GOP debate? https://t.co/fT1BAH4G6C
— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) August 22, 2023
… So The Stupidest Party Ignored Them
So, of course, Republican hopefuls and the debate moderators spent a good portion of the night detailing and interrogating proposals for reducing inflation and preventing another outbreak of soaring prices. Each one explained whether he felt the Federal Reserve should continue hiking rates or start cutting next week. We learned which candidates think fiscal policy can play an effective role in re-establishing price stability and which think only monetary policy can seriously tame inflation.
Just kidding.
In reality, almost no time was spent discussing inflation. It was mentioned in an off-hand way, in passing, and only so quickly that if you took a moment to ponder your latest grocery bills during the debate, you probably missed it.
According to MarketWatch, the word inflation came up only six times throughout the night. Other proxy issues for inflation did not fare much better. Gasoline came up seven times, costs or prices five times, and groceries three times. Add it all up, and you get 21 mentions of anything even close to the number one issue in the United States.
Compare that to Ukraine, which came up 23 times.
From left: Asa Hutchinson, Chris Christie, Mike Pence, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, and Doug Burgum at the Republican Presidential primary debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on August 23, 2023. (KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
Spending came up a number of times; but if it was used in connection with inflation, hardly anyone could have noticed. None of the Republicans gave primary voters much of a reason to believe they would be especially suited to rein in runaway spending, although former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said he’d abolish the Department of Education and block grant its funding to the states (a policy proposal Republicans have been talking about since the days of Reagan and doing nothing about for just as long).
In her closing statement, Nikki Haley said she would “bring this inflation down” but declined to explain how. Former Vice President Mike Pence decried the “worst inflation in 40 years” in his close, but one got the impression of the proverbial man shaking his fist at the clouds rather than a policymaker addressing an economic crisis.
Where Was Economic Populism?
To be fair, the broader issue of “the economy” came up a bit more frequently. Candidates used the word “economy” 22 times during the debate, by MarketWatch’s count. Yet the discussion here was almost unnoticeable, limited to a few slogans and endorsements of increased domestic energy extraction. We agree that increasing domestic production of fossil fuels is a desirable policy, but “drill, baby, drill” is hardly a new or innovative policy position for Republicans and will only go so far to address the problem of stubborn inflation.
As the far-left publication The Jacobin pointed out, economic populism was almost entirely absent throughout the night. There was plenty of China-bashing and lots of attacks on Washington, DC, but very little that is not standard GOP establishment fare. Far from taking a populist stance, Pence attacked his fellow GOP hopefuls for not proposing to cut entitlements like Social Security. To name just three examples of apparently forgotten populist proposals, we heard nothing about 1) tariffs to support domestic manufacturing and fend off predatory mercantilism practiced by so many of our trading partners or 2) support for organized labor and 3) the economic impact of high immigration on the poorest of American workers.
By contrast, our friend Larry Kudlow interviewed Donald Trump last week, and they spent nearly an hour talking about the economy. Trump provided very detailed discussions of a number of issues, including trade, tariffs, and the importance of American manufacturing. Kudlow began his interview by focusing on inflation, pointing out that prices rose six percent in the first thirty months of Trump’s presidency and are up 17 percent in Biden’s first thirty. Groceries, Kudlow pointed out, rose just two percent in the Trump period and are up 20 percent under Biden. Trump offered very specific criticisms of the Fed—it’s always too late, he said—and Chairman Jerome Powell.
It’s hard to imagine how Republicans could bungle an election that may well turn on the issues of inflation, its impact on the U.S. economy, and the strain it puts on American households. On Wednesday, however, they showed us that they can exceed what we can imagine.
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