In the
most recent “Bottom Line With Boris”, the most startling argumentative
failing is obvious: no argument is made.
His thesis is that if Congress passes the (wildly unpopular)
GOP tax plan, positive economic indicators will go up. Yet, he does not make a single argument to
that effect, even in broad strokes.
Rather, he touts recent positive economic numbers and then
asserts, without support, that we should “expect for these positive trends to
not just continue but to accelerate.”
This is akin to a member of the Jellybean Manufacturers
Association saying, “Over the last decade, life expectancy has gone up. If our proposal to include jellybeans at
every meal is heeded by Americans, expect this trend to continue.”
In other words, it’s as elementary a rhetorical “fail” as
one is ever likely to see.
Even if we, out of charity, reframe the piece into a
retrospective view on the wonders of MAGAnomics, we have problems.
Epshteyn touts positive numbers as evidence of wise Trumpian
fiscal policy. But the numbers cited
been positive for a long time, continuing trends that have been underway for
over eight years, since the end of the Great Recession under Bush II.
Example: he suggests that GDP of just over 3% is a sign of a
growing economy and of Trump following through on a campaign promise of
achieving that rate.
A few problems: Like most of what Trump says/promises,
different things come out of his mouth at different times. On the campaign trail, he often spoke of 6%
growth. On the
official White House website, we were told that the goal was 4%. Now, according to Epshteyn, the promised goal
is 3%.
Economists agree that even
this is likely an untenable goal for a variety of reasons, but it should be
noted that the recent GDP numbers are consistent
with the numbers since the Great Recession.
And, contra Boris, there is precisely no evidence that a “big
reason” for the 3% growth is the decimation of regulations. Were that true, one would have expected
anemic growth during the supposedly regulation-happy Obama years. That isn’t so.
Epshteyn also talks about consumer confidence, but gives the
game away when noting that it is at a 17-year high. Yes, it’s true that this number is higher
than it’s been since the Clinton presidency, but again, the upward trend was
consistent during the Obama administration.
There has not been some sudden uptick, as Epshteyn attempts to imply. Moreover, leading
indicators suggest that this number will likely be dipping over the next
couple of years.
Finally, Epshteyn discusses the positive impact of business
investment and the low unemployment rate.
However, again, there is nothing trend-breaking about the numbers cited,
despite his attempt to suggest they are.
More importantly, to return to the tax policy debate, there’s
no evidence that anything in the GOP bill will spur a rise in jobs and
wages. Indeed, businesses themselves
have said that the majority of their tax windfalls will be used to pay down debt
and cut dividend checks. Even economists
the Trump administration like to cite acknowledge that there’s little in thecurrent tax plan that will spur the economy.
There could be: real tax cuts for working Americans would
put money in the hands of people who spend it, and that is the single biggest
factor in GDP growth. Spending on
infrastructure would spur the economy in both the short and long term. But the current bill simply redistributes
wealth to the very top and saddles the nation with debt with nothing to show
for it.
Here is the bottom line on Boris: he decontextualizes
numbers to fallaciously suggest a surge in economic momentum and then, without
offering a single bit of evidence, suggests that tax policy that is both wildly
unpopular and criticized
by non-partisan authorities will, magically, make things wonderful. Sad!
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