Article here (it’s not paywalled for me but who knows how that stuff works at this point):
The main points are to continue leaving the fed uninterfered to do what it thinks is best, to invest in capacity building so the economy can produce to fill demands for goods, and to reduce the deficit.
There are some nods to wanting to get a modified Build Back Better 2022 (Electric Bugaloo) passed - the plans to reduce the deficit and allow the fed to negotiate on prescription drug prices would require a reconciliation bill in this environment.
We still have a lot of Trump era tariffs which IMO aren’t helping inflation, an issue which unfortunately weren’t mentioned by Biden. Given where inflation is at this point I don’t think it would be a bad idea to in addition to getting rid of most or all of Trump’s tariffs, to go back to tariffs that were in place prior to his administration and remove/reform some of those.
I think all the tariffs should be repealed immediately. I voted for Joe Biden knowing that his trade policy was awful and based on boomer nostalgia for the 1950s and lunch pail America.
Yeah, I may have moderated the point too much. I get that in some cases there’s the idea of reciprocity with these tariffs but really it’s hard to argue that keeping tariffs in place is a good idea, and at least eliminating them should be the rule rather than the exception when you’re dealing with the entangled supply chain and inflation issues we have now. Other than sanctions for Russia and the like we should be letting the goods flow.
I forgot to mention that Biden did say he wants to punish freight liners for charging huge fees which is sort of an attempt to attack the same problem, but I think it’s a little dishonest given that he is not evidently going to go at everything that artificially inflates the cost of trade within his ability - which would include a policy against shipping gouging in addition to promoting free trade as much as possible.
I also think that in addition to Biden’s trade policy likely being an attempt to get votes rather than implement sound economic policy, it isn’t even a good idea on that front. When the economy is good people credit what they think is good whether it be nostalgia for the hard hat workers eating lunch on a steel girder or whatever else. When the economy is bad people who want to blame globalism are going to blame globalism even if protectionism is exacerbating the biggest issue with the economy rather than helping.
A slight hijack… is it too late for the Democrats to survive the midterms or should we expect a Republican-controlled Congress, perhaps not veto-proof, for the remaining 2 years of Biden’s first term due to high inflation, the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the price of gas and diesel in the US, none of which he has very much control over.
This is very similar to attempts to control rent via rent control, and would be counterproductive for the same reasons.
Freight liner pricing works by supply and demand, and if there’s a glut of shipping capacity nobody does anything to prop up shipping rates, and the shippers take it on the chin. Artificially capping the upside but not the downside would have the impact of investing in shipping less worthwhile, which would over the long term reduce shipping capacity and increase costs.
My understanding is that retaliation-based tactics just generally aren’t good financial policy. Tariffs on other countries only give them cover for the same, and results in a tariff war. Subsidies work similarly to reduce costs of goods you want to prioritize, but with apparently less baggage.
I spent almost my entire adult life being a strong advocate of free trade. However, I support maintaining tariffs against China–and in fact increasing them in many ways.
Why? Because it isn’t about economics any longer. It is a serious threat to our country the level of economic interdependency we have created with China. This has been a 40 year process, it has no magic fix. But it doesn’t improve by deepening, and barriers to trade can at least arrest and maybe eventually unspool some of it. There are bigger concerns than dollars and cents and returns on investment and even than consumer prices. I am willing for prices to be higher and businesses to be hurt to push a multi-decade effort to reduce our economic integration with China.
Going back to Nixon I honestly thought our economic dealings with China were going to be one of the great American success stories, and it even looked to be the case for a time, but I think that just isn’t the case now. It has made us more strategically vulnerable and has arguably gutted some of our core regional demographics with no real countervailing benefits, the places in America that have suffered due to off-shoring have largely not been the ones who benefit much at all from the increased trading activity–most of the benefits have accrued to the wealthy coastals, this has been at least part of a shift to more political extremism in the Rust Belt.
Another thing about tariffs is that once you impose them and business starts reacting to them a momentum is started that isn’t easily stopped. Businesses make new agreements with partners in other countries, start moving plants out of China and are leery about making new deals that involve only China.
I also think that the Biden administration is OK with the tariffs for those very reasons, it needed to be done because China was getting too much leverage over our economy and it turns out that Trump actually made a gutsy move politically that otherwise couldn’t have been done. But of course the Biden administration would never admit that Trump got something right, they’ll just reap the benefits of trade moving to nations of friendlier status like Mexico thru the MCA trade agreement (another Trump initiative).
I don’t care one bit for Trump, but I also don’t fall for the every thing he did was wrong just because I don’t like him.
Yes I do. As I stated I believe China had and still has more leverage than they deserve considering the positions they take that are opposed to ours. Better to spread the trade out. Not saying cut China off, but scale back.
I fear the same thing. People blame the president for everything making them unhappy, regardless of whether he can do jackshit about them, and if they bother to vote at all in the midterms will vote for the party telling them it’s all the president’s fault. The fact that Biden is talking about anti-inflation measures – or, more precisely, framing his existing priorities as anti-inflation measures – shows that he sees the writing on the wall.
It definitely won’t be veto-proof. That’s mathematically impossible since only 1/3 of the Senate is up.
But otherwise, we’re getting to the point in the year where the cake is really starting to be baked. A party whose president is 13 points underwater in June is going to have an incredibly difficult time in November.
Well they successfully didn’t restore the SALT exemptions so there’s that.
No one is really playing fair but after the damage Trump did to our standing we have a lot less authority to judge fairness in world trade.
The USMCA isn’t substantively different from NAFTA and really has no discernible effect in comparison with NAFTA on big picture trade issues like this.
I disagree with that the tariffs are actually giving the US economic independence from China, but I do think Biden should take a position on this. If he actually, like you, agrees with Trump he should admit that. For the tariffs to be continuing this long someone (either us or China) must not be serious about getting rid of them.
This seems to be a common refrain these days. Do Repubs do a much better job getting their vote out or do Dems just do a terrible job? Or are Repubs simply more passionate about voting than Dems are? I don’t get it.
Generally the party that controls the white house has less motivated voters in the midterms. That seems to be the pattern. When your party controls the white house, your voters get complacent and the other side’s voters get energized.
Republicans tend to be older and older people have higher voter turnout. But in presidential year elections, I don’t think the age gap in voting turnout is as large. However it can be huge in off year and primary elections.