Looking Towards 2028: A Reflection on Economic Illiteracy in the 2024 Presidential Election

Irrespective of party, every voter should want their preferred candidate to implement policies that work. As the United States moves forward from the 2024 presidential election, it is now time to reflect on the policies of both candidates and their respective parties. Neither Donald Trump nor Kamala Harris’ policy proposals to spur the U.S. economy were grounded in economics. This shortcoming shouldn’t be brushed aside as the country heads toward the 2028 election. Both Trump and Harris touted a vision for America that involves supporting the middle class, but their policies — in practice — stem more from surface-level analysis than real evidence for supporting the middle class. The fact that the foundation of what each candidate pushed for in this race was largely based on falsehoods should worry all Americans concerned about their well-being and their country. We all have different views on the direction of this country, but that is no excuse for repeating long-debunked economic fallacies as mainstream policy proposals.  

Both candidates campaigned on the promise of tackling inflation as a priority during their presidencies, yet their theories for the root causes of inflation strayed far from the truth. Trump continues to blame Democrats for poor economic policy when it was under his presidency that 4.8 trillion dollars (CRFB, 2024) were added to the national debt, even before COVID-19, which cost another 3.6 trillion relief funds, which in turn were widely defrauded (Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, 2024). Despite his already poor track record, Trump’s new economic plan takes many problems and uses tariffs as a blanket solution. In a recent discussion at the Economic Club of Chicago, he threatened upward of 2,000% tariffs (Smart, 2024) on automobile imports with the goal of incentivizing production in the U.S. Economists estimate that high tariffs could lead to an astonishing 6-9.3% inflation rate (McKibbin et al., 2024). While economic studies on the exact inflation numbers that may occur as a result of Trump’s tariff plan vary, the underlying principle that consumers will end up paying a portion of these tariffs themselves remains true. Tariffs of this magnitude are certain to have a massive effect on Americans’ wallets and could spark retaliatory tariffs from impacted countries, harming domestic U.S. industry even further.   

Kamala Harris’ economic literacy was no better than her opponent in this race. Under the Biden-Harris administration, trillions of dollars were added to the national debt (CRFB, 2024), contributing greatly to recent inflation. Even worse, the Vice President believes it is big corporations that are single-handedly responsible for inflation (Lucas & Repko, 2024) through corporate greed (Harris, 2024). She appears unconcerned about the national debt and her policy plan included trillions of dollars in deficit spending (CRFB, 2024). One of Harris’ solutions to inflation is equally bizarre; price controls. These antiquated remedies are hallmarks of authoritarian regimes such as Cuba and the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Price controls have long been debunked as a viable long-term solution to high prices. When price controls are set below the market supply and demand equilibrium, they lead to shortages (Neely, 2022). Shortages aside, price controls hamper one of the U.S.’s greatest strengths: innovation (Crane, 2023). The U.S.’ continued economic growth is dependent upon markets free from such intense intervention that create harsh business environments, stifling innovation. 

As American citizens, we must demand more from those who contend for our highest elected office. Presidents don’t need to be economic experts, but we should expect their policies to be economically grounded. These are people who surround themselves with policy advisors who are supposedly experts in their given fields, so there is no excuse for such basic misunderstanding in policy plans. My qualms with these economic plans aren’t simply a concern for misinformed candidates, they are fundamentally a concern about the government’s ability to effectively deliver on basic public services. We live in a world of scarce resources, so the field that studies scarcity — economics — must be at the center of policy-making decisions. Inflation was the key issue of this race, but next time around it will be something different. Any problem with national implications like infrastructure, defense or welfare is fundamentally an issue of how we allocate resources most effectively, so having rational economic thought at the center of policy is paramount. 

Edited by Jessie Zhu

References

Crane, B. (2023, July 12). The effect of reference pricing on Pharmaceutical Innovation: Perspectives on Innovation. CSIS. https://www.csis.org/blogs/perspectives-innovation/effect-reference-pricing-pharmaceutical-innovation  

Harris Walz Presidential Campaign. (2024). A New Way Forward for the Middle Class: A Plan to Lower Costs and Create an Opportunity Economy.  

McKibbin, W., Hogan, M., & Noland, M. (2024). Trump’s economic policies could stoke inflation and hurt the US economy. Peterson Institute for International Economics. https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2024/trumps-economic-policies-could-stoke-inflation-and-hurt-us-economy  

Neely, C. J. (2024). Why price controls should stay in the history books. Saint Louis Fed Eagle. https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2022/mar/why-price-controls-should-stay-history-books  

Repko, M., & Lucas, A. (2024). Kamala Harris wants to take on price gouging. it’s hard to find agreement on what it even is. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/29/what-is-price-gouging-kamala-harris-promises-to-fight-inflation.html  

Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, after action review of the COVID-19 pandemic: The lessons learned and a path forward 147 (2024). Washington, D.C.  

Smart, T. (2024). Trump doubles down on import tariffs in an economic policy interview | economy | U.S. news. US News. https://www.usnews.com/news/economy/articles/2024-10-15/trump-doubles-down-on-import-tariffs-in-a-economic-policy-interview  

Trump and Biden: The national debt. (2024). Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. https://www.crfb.org/papers/trump-and-biden-national-debt  

The New York Times. (2024). It’s Not Pandering When You Tell the Truth’: Five Columnists Game Out the Debate [Illustration]. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/10/opinion/trump-harris-debate.html