The results were rather alarming: as the Wall Street Journal reported, Trump’s proposals, if taken at face value, would likely produce “a prolonged recession and heavy job losses that would fall hardest on low- and middle-income workers.”
As Bloomberg Politics reported yesterday, it’s not the only financial-sector analysis reaching this conclusion.
The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States could lead to chaos in markets and increased policy uncertainty that tip the world into recession, according to Citigroup Inc.“A Trump victory in particular could prolong and perhaps exacerbate policy uncertainty and deliver a shock (though perhaps short-lived) to financial markets,” writes a team led by Chief Economist Willem Buiter. “Tightening financial conditions and further rises in uncertainty could trigger a significant slowdown in U.S., but also global growth.”
Making matters slightly worse, the WSJ reported yesterday that the 2016 Republican nominee “garners no support from any of the White House economists who have advised U.S. presidents for the past half-century.”
The Wall Street Journal this month reached out to all 45 surviving former members of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under the past eight presidents, going back to Richard Nixon, to get their views on this year’s presidential election.Among 17 Republican appointees who responded to Journal inquiries, none said they supported Mr. Trump. Six said they did not support Mr. Trump and 11 declined to say either way. An additional six did not respond to repeated messages. Among the 21 Democrats who responded to the Journal, 14 said they supported Mrs. Clinton, none said they opposed her and seven declined to say either way. One Democratic appointee didn’t respond to messages.
“I have known personally every Republican president since Richard Nixon,” Harvard University economist Martin Feldstein, who chaired the CEA under Ronald Reagan, told the Journal. “They all showed a real understanding of economics and international affairs…. Donald Trump does not have that understanding and does not seem to be concerned about it. That alone disqualifies him in my judgment.”
Gregory Mankiw, the council’s chairman under George W. Bush, added, “I have Republican friends who think that things couldn’t be worse than doubling down on Obama policies under Hillary Clinton. And, like them, I am no fan of the left’s agenda of large government and high taxes. But they are wrong: Things could be worse. And I fear they would be under Mr. Trump.”
When it comes to the dominant issues of the presidential race, the economy and job creation don’t spend too much time in the spotlight. Perhaps that’s to be expected when the unemployment rate goes from 10% to 4.9%. But whether the issue is on front pages or not, for voters principally concerned with the state of the economy, Trump is campaigning from a position of weakness.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."