Will Donald Trump be good for the US economy? The American people seem to think so. According to a recent survey taken by Gallup “Americans have relatively high expectations (of) the president-elect… Substantial majorities (upward of 60%) believe the Trump administration will improve the economy and create jobs. A slim majority (52%) say he’ll improve the healthcare system.” Even more impressive, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index spiked to a 93.8 -high in November, signaling a significant improvement in overall consumer attitudes about the economy.
Analysts attribute this change in outlook to the recent presidential election which showed a marked-uptick in optimism “across all income and age subgroups across the country.” “The initial reaction of consumers to Trump’s victory was to express greater optimism about their personal finances as well as improved prospects for the national economy,” said Richard Curtin, the survey’s chief economist. So, people are not just giving Trump the benefit of the doubt, they genuinely think their economic situation is going to get better under the new president.
The results are particularly significant when we realize that the economy not only topped the list of important issues going into the November elections, but that also (according to a survey conducted by Edison Research) “Three in five voters said the country was seriously on the wrong track and about the same number said the economy was either not good or poor. Two-thirds said their personal financial situation was either worse or the same as it was four years ago. About one in three voters said they expected life to be worse for the next generation.”
In other words, the election was a referendum on Obama’s handling of the economy, in which 60 percent of those surveyed, think was a failure. These results also suggest that, had Obama made any attempt to address wage stagnation, shrinking incomes, student debt, or widespread economic insecurity, Hillary Clinton would probably be president today. As it happens, the victory went to the anti-establishment outsider who promised a fundamental change in direction, Donald Trump.
This is particularly worth thinking about now that protests have broken out in cities across the country and liberals are accusing Trump supporters of voting for a racist. No, the majority of Trump supporters did not vote for a racist (surveys also show that a majority of these people support a way for undocumented immigrants to attain US citizenship) nor do the approve of the white nationalist movement. They voted for someone who they thought would change the economic policies that have been destructive to their interests. Trump won the election because he addressed the issues that matter to ordinary working people and refrained from such foolishness as running around with his hair on fire blaming the Russians for everything under the sky. Hillary Clinton got exactly what she deserved. Now the question is: Can Trump deliver?
The question is not only important for the American people, but also for the Trump administration that figures its prospects for success depend largely on an economic revival. Steve Bannon, who is Trump’s chief strategist and advisor, knows that he won’t be able to build a strong, divers coalition to support his political revolution without boosting growth and improving conditions for working people. That’s why fixing the economy is Job 1.
Here’s a quote from Bannon: “The globalists gutted the American working class and created a middle class in Asia. The issue now is about Americans looking to not get f-ed over. If we deliver…”we’ll get 60 percent of the white vote, and 40 percent of the black and Hispanic vote and we’ll govern for 50 years. That’s what the Democrats missed. They were talking to these people with companies with a $9 billion market cap employing nine people. It’s not reality. They lost sight of what the world is about.”… “It’s everything related to jobs. The conservatives are going to go crazy. I’m the guy pushing a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan. With negative interest rates throughout the world, it’s the greatest opportunity to rebuild everything. Ship yards, iron works, get them all jacked up. We’re just going to throw it up against the wall and see if it sticks. It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution – conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement.” (Ringside with Steve Bannon, Hollywood Reporter)
I don’t pretend to know anything more about Steve Bannon than I’ve read in the newspapers and on the Internet. What I do know, however, is that if he is sincere in his desire to defeat the corrupt political establishment and build a coalition that “will govern for 50 years”, he’s going to have to find a way to climb down on his hardline immigration policies in order to implement his economic strategy. That said, I expect Trump will settle on some way to minimize the damage he has done to himself and call on congress to get more involved in the hot-button immigration issue. In other words, he’s going to have to punt if he wants to govern.
Bannon is the main architect of Trump’s economic plan, a plan that has already earned broad public support, but a plan that won’t succeed unless it is drastically changed. Here’s why:
Trump’s economic plan can be broken into three parts: Tax cuts, deregulation and fiscal stimulus.