Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists — all unabashed liberals — have unleashed a partisan attack against Donald Trump on the eve of the first presidential debate.
In a letter released Wednesday, the economists claim that former President Donald Trump could stoke inflation if he wins the presidency in November and implements his economic plans. It’s highly likely that President Joe Biden or even the debate moderators will cite the letter during Thursday night’s debate.
“Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has come down remarkably fast. There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets,” the economists claim without evidence.
In fact, polls show that the American public overwhelmingly disapproves of the way Biden has handled America’s inflation crisis. A June poll by YouGov for the Economist found that 60 percent of the public disapprove and just 31 percent approve.
The Trump campaign blasted the letter, pointing out that Biden’s spending excesses were one of the primary causes of our current inflation problems.
“The American people don’t need worthless out of touch Nobel Prize winners to tell them which president put more money in their pockets. President Trump built the strongest economy in American history. In just three years, Joe Biden’s out of control spending created the worst inflation crisis in generations,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary.
Brian Sullivan, the anchor of CNBC’s evening news program The Last Call, described the letter as an example of political “weaponization” of economics.
Are economic reports becoming weaponized for the 2024 election? @SullyCNBC explains. pic.twitter.com/DM2M0MzOx2
— Last Call (@LastCallCNBC) June 26, 2024
Among the signatories are Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University and Robert Shiller of Yale. Notably, George A. Akerlof, one of the signatories, is married to Biden’s Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen.
These so-called experts were noticeably silent when the Biden administration’s reckless spending spree ignited the worst inflation in 40 years. Now, they want us to believe their crystal ball predictions of economic doom under Trump.
The letter echoes the now-debunked gripes from Trump’s presidency, when many economists claimed that his tariff policies would cause consumer prices to rise. In fact, inflation remained extremely low during Trump’s presidency, typically below the Federal Reserve’s two percent target.
Under Biden, on the other hand, the U.S. has been saddled with persistent inflation, prompting the Federal Reserve to maintain the highest interest rates in over two decades. Despite cooling from a peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022, Americans remain pessimistic about the economy and believe high inflation will persist. Yet, these economists want to preemptively blame Trump, who hasn’t been in office for years.
Many of these Nobel laureates have even backed more spending by the Biden administration. They supported the massive economic stimulus plans and infrastructure investments, claiming these would lead to long-term growth and reduced inflationary pressures. None were vocal in support of the views of prominent economists such as Larry Summers and Olivier Blanchard—both liberals themselves—who correctly warned that Biden’s excessive spending would lead to inflation.
The letter from Stiglitz and his fellow laureates did not detail specific critiques of Trump’s economics plans, which include higher tariffs on goods from China and other countries that persist in unfair trade practices that damage U.S. manufacturing. Trump has also promised to extend the personal tax cuts that slashed tax bills for most American taxpayers.
But it heaped praise on President Joe Biden’s economic policies, from the Inflation Reduction Act to subsidies for Green New Deal manufacturing projects.
“In his first four years as President, Joe Biden signed into law major investments in the U.S. economy, including infrastructure, domestic manufacturing, and climate initiatives,” the letter states. “Together, these investments are likely to increase productivity and economic growth while lowering long-term inflationary pressures and facilitating the clean energy transition.”
Although most Americans think that Trump was a better steward of the American economy than Biden, the liberal economists who signed the letter are unanimous in their view that Biden’s program is “vastly superior.”
“While each of us holds different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all concur that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump’s,” they write.
“Americans know we cannot afford four more years of Bidenomics, and when President Trump is back in the White House, he will reimplement his pro-growth, pro-energy, pro-jobs agenda to bring down inflation, make gas cheap again, and uplift all Americans,” Leavitt said in response.
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