OPINION:
“People are working harder and longer just to keep their heads above water. And to deal with the costs, the everyday costs, the costs of basics like childcare and prescription drugs that are too high. College is getting more expensive every day. And wages are still too low and inequality is too great. Good jobs in this country are still too hard to come by.”
This was the very curious case that Hillary laid out last week as to why voters should elect her president and continue with the policies of Barack Obama. Flat wages, jobs hard to come by, kitchen table bills getting higher and higher each month and the middle class getting clobbered. Doesn’t it just want to make you break out and chant: “four more years?”
But Hillary’s speech was about playing the fear card. Yes, the economy stinks, but it’s not as bad as it will be if the scurrilous Donald Trump becomes president. You can’t get much more inspirational than that.
So just what is it that is so diabolical about Mr. Trump? First, she warned, Mr. Trump will blow up the debt.
There was something almost comical about Hillary’s pontificating about the dangers of government borrowing and the need for fiscal responsibility. Wait. Wasn’t she part of the Obama administration which also promised all these things? And haven’t those policies given us the weakest recovery ever since the Great Depression, and a near doubling of the national debt to $19 trillion. The chart shows just how towering the debt has become under PresidentObama.
One of her more ironic claims was that here “in America we pay our bills,” in reference to Mr. Trump’s sensible idea of refinancing out debt to lock in low in today’s historical low interest rates. Ringing up some $8 trillion of debt is hardly “paying the bills.” It’s passing them on to the next generation.
Hillary slammed Mr. Trump for not understanding the new economy and job creation, which is also a bold claim since Donald Trump is a highly successful businessman who actually has created thousands of jobs, while Hillary has gotten rich off of … politics.
Hillary’s attacks on Mr. Trump were a subterfuge to deflect attention from the most remarkable part of her rant. What was billed as a “major economic speech” was entirely bereft of new ideas. The left’s idea cupboard is entirely empty so Hillary had to serve yesterday’s cold soup.
Her policy solutions to helping the middle class were raise the minimum wage, tax the rich, and spend more on infrastructure. She’s also going to lower college costs. Gee, where have we seen this before? Oh yes, this is Obamanomics Part Deaux. When I debated one of her top economists on Fox News the next day, he even trotted out the mantra that every dollar of government spending leads to a “multiplier effect” of $1.60 in economic benefits. Do they really believe voters are so dimwitted they will fall for that again?
The class warfare theme ran throughout the speech, and yet this presents Hillary with another inconvenient problem. Mr. Obama has raised the minimum wage, he already did spent $840 billion on infrastructure stimulus spending, and he has taxed the bejesus out of the rich. And the result wasn’t more equality and a resurgent middle class, but an angry and worried worker class that hasn’t seen a pay raise in 15 years and with household incomes in the last seven years that have fallen behind inflation. Some 95 million Americans aren’t working and the poverty rate is still hellishly high.
On trade she trashed Mr. Trump for closing our markets and threatening a trade war and then she recommended trade policies that seem almost the same as Mr. Trump’s. Get tougher in trade deals. Punish China for cheating. Renegotiate the Asia trade pact. Mr. Trump should sue for plagiarism. Hillary made the claim that Mr. Trump hates working women, but the Obama/Clinton policies have been anything but beneficial to women. Single women have seen some of the biggest income declines under Obama. Women pay the family bills and see the strain on household budgets. They are going to wonder just who hates women.
Hillary also says how much she cares about black and Latino voters — and you might even say she “feels their pain.” But these two groups have also suffered the steepest declines in income under Obama policies. Sorry, Hillary, voters want results, not lip service.
For his part, Donald Trump does have a pro-growth agenda. He would cut tax rates as Ronald Reagan and JFK did to bring jobs back to America. He would simplify the tax code and cut tax rates to their lowest level since Mr. Reagan left office.
He has a pro-America energy policy to make the United States the fossil fuel powerhouse of the world. He would roll back Obamacare and balance the budget with spending reforms and economic growth while rolling back the Obama regulatory assault on business.
If Hillary pulls off this election it will be one of the greatest sales jobs in political history. She is selling the American voters sand in the desert: stay the course economic bromides at a time when two out of three voters say that the United States is on the wrong, not the right track. Even her own husband, the former president doesn’t agree with her. A few months ago Bill Clinton honestly called the last seven years “awful.” Voters share that sentiment. This is why a strong majority think Mr. Trump is better for the economy than Mrs. Clinton. Voters want change.
• Stephen Moore is an economist at Freedom Works and a Donald Trump economic adviser.
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