The Economy


In 1992 when Bill Clinton was running for President, there was a sign posted at his campaign headquarters that read “It’s the economy, stupid,” a rather harsh but nonetheless direct reminder to staffers that the main issue in the campaign was the economy. This was at the end of the Reagan/Bush era when it had become obvious that Reagan’s “trickle down economics” did nothing to help the middle and lower classes. The theory was that, if millionaires and billionaires got big tax breaks, they would spend their money on products that increased corporate profits, which would end up trickling down to the less fortunate. The result was disastrous. By 1992, the economy was suffering and the middle and lower classes were suffering along with it.

Economy is always a huge issue in elections, so I thought it might be a good idea to see what each party’s platform has to say about the economy.

The GOP platform offers a number of economic proposals that come from two sources. First, I’d like to examine what the GOP’s Project 2025 platform is proposing. This, by the way, is available for your examination online with very little research involved. Essentially the Project 2025 platform proposes to:

1. lower the threshold at which salaried (non- hourly) workers qualify for overtime if they work over 40 hours a week. The current threshold is $43,888. This means that anyone making more than that does not qualify for overtime pay. If the GOP lowers the threshold to—for example--$35,000, anyone making more than that would not qualify for overtime pay. This would affect 4 million people working in hospitality, manufacturing, administrative roles, etc.

2). eliminate the Economic Development Administration which, according to its 2022 report, invested billions into infrastructure projects which created 220,000 jobs and generated $20 billion in private investment.

3). consolidate the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS measures employment, compensation, worker safety, productivity, and price movement. Information gathered is currently used by jobseekers, workers, and business leaders. The Bureau of Economic Analysis measures the country’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Since it would become more difficult to collect data with the consolidation of these agencies, a veil could be drawn over how the economy is actually doing, whether families’ paychecks are growing, and whether small businesses are thriving.

4). weaken child labor protections by allowing employers to put young people into inherently dangerous jobs.

5). restrict food assistance by imposing a work requirement onto SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) households that include a child, an elderly person, or a person with disabilities. (Currently 92% of SNAP benefits go to households with low incomes or incomes below the poverty line.)

6). limit which disabilities would qualify military veterans for actual benefits.

7). remove monetary safety nets for farmers, restricting them to “unusual situations.” The “unusual situations” are not defined.

8). end public transportation projects by eliminating the Capital Investment Grants program, which has been responsible for awarding billions of dollars to key public transportation projects across the country.

9). cut the federal loan programs that help parents of college students and graduate students to afford higher education.

10). On the plus side, they propose to eliminate taxes on tips, create a Central Bank of Digital (Crypto) Currency, create “a robust Manufacturing Industry in Near Earth Orbit and enhance partnerships with the Commercial Space Sector to revolutionize our ability to access, live in, and develop assets in space.”

Additionally, the GOP candidate for President adds to the plan with five elements which, unfortunately, 16 Nobel Prize winning economists have labelled as a plan that will make inflation explode:

1.The Tariff Plan: The GOP candidate would put tariffs of 60% on products from China and 10% on products from other foreign countries. The inherent problem with this plan is that foreign manufacturers would pass this cost on to the corporation importing the products and that corporation would simply pass the cost on to the consumers. Economists have pointed out that this tariff plan would cost the average family an extra $2500 per year.

2. The Monopoly Plan: Corporate consolidation is one of the biggest drivers of inflation. (Think airline tickets and how the cost of flying has increased with each airline merger). Fewer competitors means that corporations can raise their prices without worrying that a competitor might offer a lower price. Project 2025 wants to fast track airline mergers and fast track oil mergers. Economists point out that this would result in higher prices due to less competition.

3.The Energy Price Hike: This proposal is to end clean energy and end fuel efficiency standards. These are standards that were set up by the Biden administration.

4.The Devaluation of the Dollar: The proposal is to look for ways to devalue the dollar in order to attract foreign investors. Right now the dollar is strong against all foreign currencies. This would reduce its strength. The unfortunate by-product is that your dollar would become worth less.

5. The Deportation Plan: The plan would deport all illegal immigrants. On the surface this might seem like a possible way to create new jobs. The side effect, however, would be the loss of 1,000,000 construction workers, 1,000,000 farm workers, and 1,000,000 food service workers.


The Democrats’ program would build upon the economic gains from the Biden administration, as grown through the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill. At the moment, those advancements include the construction of major roadways, investments in public transit, replacement of toxic lead pipes, and the production of 80,000 megawatts of clean energy. Employment is at the lowest it has been for decades. The Democratic platform now specifically addresses the following:

1. Taxes would not go up for anyone making less than $400,000 per year; taxes would be cut for 100 million Americans; in the first year of a child’s life, the parents would receive a $6,000 tax credit to enable them to provide the items necessary for that child’s first year of life; corporate taxes would be raised and billionaires’ taxes would be raised to achieve more equity in what people are paying; there would be a $50,000 tax deduction for start-up businesses, which create nearly 50% of private sector jobs; there would be tax credits for steel, iron, and other manufacturing jobs.

2. The administration would develop active partnerships with the private sector by investing in new industries and working with banks and tech companies to increase money going into community banks and small businesses in order to create opportunities for individuals to grow wealth.

3. $25,000 would be provided to first time home buyers; tax incentives would be created for homebuilders to add 3,000,000 housing units for sale or for rent; the amount of red tape that goes along with homebuilding would be reduced by working with state and local governments; incentives would be created for state and local governments to provide affordable housing for working people.

4. There would be a Federal ban on corporate price gouging; a commitment to capping the cost of medication for everyone; access to paid leave to care for children and the elderly in need of care.

5. The platform calls for: investments in biomanufacturing, aerospace, and artificial intelligence; investments in clean energy innovation and manufacturing so that the next generation of innovative products are built in the U.S.; the retooling of existing factories to make them suitable for other industries than the one for which they were originally built; originally; the doubling of registered apprenticeships.

This information can be found online and in a simplified version by accessing the transcript of Stephanie Ruhle’s interview with Vice President Harris which can be found through msnbc.com.

Of course, no matter which candidate wins, that candidate must increase majorities in the House and the Senate in order to get bills passed. So the wise move by any voter wanting to see action is to vote along party lines in order to enable Congress to get something done.

It’s my strong belief that we need to be informed voters, uninfluenced by social media, paid influencers, television commercials, billboards, banners, and yard signs. This year more than any other, an informed choice is crucial.

Elizabeth George
Seattle, Washington
September 28, 2024