Letter to the Editor (Graphic Illustration/MetroCreative)
This contradicts the claims of Trump and the media. I need three to four letters to provide the necessary facts to support my opinion. I have taken two elective courses in economics.
Let’s get to the facts. There is no denying that eggs and gasoline were cheaper during Trump’s 2016 term than under Biden. I argue that a direct comparison is not possible. That is like comparing apples to oranges. They are two different economic cycles separated by Trump’s clumsy handling of COVID-19. This will be a topic of its own. A fair comparison could only be made by projecting a Biden economy in 2016 and a Trump economy in 2021. Biden’s economic policies will be better when comparing their policies across both economic cycles. I will show how Trump’s plans for the economy, if elected in 2024, will hurt the middle and lower classes and help him and his rich friends.
Let’s start by looking at Trump’s economy in 2016. Trump inherited a low-inflation economy from Obama, as the economy was slow to recover from the 2008 recession. Trump wanted his economic policies to be remembered as boosting GDP growth to 5%. To do this, he chose trickle-down economics, the Laffer Curve. The simple explanation is to give massive tax cuts to the rich. All the money they get will be invested in factories to make widgets. Construction workers who build the factories and workers who make the widgets will make a lot more money than before. The resulting taxes on their extra income will exceed the lost taxes on the tax breaks for the rich. Trump’s 2017 tax law also gave small tax breaks to low- and middle-income people. This was already tried under Reagan. It didn’t work. Clinton raised taxes on the rich, the economy thrived, and he paid off debt. My definition of an idiot is someone who bangs his head against the wall and believes that if he does it longer and harder than before, the desired result will be achieved. Here is the result. The GDP increase was never more than 2%. Trump bragged that he got Foxconn, an Apple widget maker, to build a huge factory in Wisconsin. But that turned out to be a huge Trump hoax. It was nothing more than a big hole in the ground, and the state of Wisconsin had to call in the loans it had given Foxconn.
Further verifiable information follows in Letters 2–4.
The election of the idiot Trump will cause severe damage to the economy.
Gregory Cigal
Parkersburg
