Yet again, a Democratic administration is ending with the economy doing well. Republican administrations haven’t done that in over 30 years.
George H.W. Bush left a mess for Bill Clinton, George W. Bush left a mess for Barack Obama, and Donald Trump left a mess for Joe Biden.
Each time, the Democratic president responded with a vigorous economic expansion. Each time, the next Republican ran the economy into the ground again. So much for the myth of Republican presidents being better managers of the economy than Democratic ones.
In his first term, Trump got this process going by skimming off the profits of the eight-year Obama expansion in order to give himself and his rich friends a tax break. While he’s already walking back the promises he made about reducing prices, bringing peace to Ukraine, etc., he isn’t walking back the promise of another big tax break for himself and his rich friends.
And one can see why: It will be important to them that the profits from the Biden boom get skimmed off quickly, since the combination of tariffs and reduction of the immigrant work force Trump’s also promised will surely drive the economy back down into the ground.
And there it will have to wait for another Democratic president to lift it up again, with the new jobs, higher wages, and small business start-ups that always come with Democratic administrations.
Jonathan Cohen, Farmington
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