# Why are white Americans hyping up Trump's economy the most? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [January 20, 2020, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-white-americans-hyping-up-trumps-economy-the-most/846715 "2020-01-20T19:47:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2020, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-white-americans-hyping-up-trumps-economy-the-most/846715/41 "2020-02-09T23:03:27Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Trump is goosing the economy right now with tax cuts. At some point you have to pay for those tax cuts. This is exactly right. Republicans have figured out the formula. Juice the economy with tax cuts when things are on the upswing, and claim credit for the hot economy. When the economy crashes and the Democrat gets elected, demand austerity and assign blame for the tepid recovery. Start trade wars and military wars when things are fairly stable. When the Democrat gets elected, blame them for military and economic peril. It’s a fucking formula and the Republicans have got it dialed in. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2020, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-white-americans-hyping-up-trumps-economy-the-most/846715/42 "2020-02-09T23:11:08Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I think this is spot on. > > One thing that I find interesting is that, in my experience, the typical person has no idea what their tax rate is (myself included). … > > Meaning, people think “my taxes are lower” because they are told by politicians that they got a tax break, not because they’ve actually crunched the numbers and determined that they are paying a lower effective rate. > > This spreads to other economic indicators, as well. If the talking person on the TV says that markets are soaring, well, then I can take solace that I live in a good economy. If they furrow their brow and worry about a coming recession, then I might get concerned. > > So, the whole “the economy is good” argument is based on what people (who are already inclined to support Trump) have been told about the economy, and which they therefore think justifies their support. It isn’t people looking at their financial statements and drawing a conclusion from those. Even if somebody is making more money, or got a better job, I doubt that they can draw a straight line from that success and some sort of government policy that has recently been enacted. Perhaps, but how much less true was this when Democrats ran in the past on ‘good economy’? We could probably debate that for pages, and depending which past case (during Bill Clinton? good marks for relative progress some people gave Obama in 2012?) but moreover depending one’s worldview that inclines them to the Democrats or Republicans in the first place. I think everybody with any degree of sophistication whatsoever knows that the US federal govt’s actions don’t strictly dictate even the cyclical state of the US economy, much less the secular (issues that run across business cycles) state of it. That doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable for them to attribute changes at the margin to who is ‘in charge’. There is some rational basis for that, but it’s not some objective fact that everyone is ever going to agree on. Back to OP ‘white Americans are hyping up Trump’s economy’ seems to me to conflate two things in a confused way. White voters are more likely, and non-white voters less likely, to support the GOP, and this wasn’t dramatically more true of Trump than his now nemesis Romney comparing 2012 and 2016 exit polls. Nor has the situation of racial skew in party support changed dramatically up to now, AFAIK. I think you’d need more evidence to say that white and non-white voters’ view of the economy since 1/2017 is what creates a party support by race skew…that hasn’t really changed. In fact I think at the margin it’s pretty clear risk for Democrats that lower unemployment particularly among non-whites and faster income gains particularly among lower wage workers could depress enthusiasm for them, especially if their candidate runs on radical economic change, though that’s yet to be determined. Which again does not mean it’s a ‘fact’ that those trends are due to Trump. It also doesn’t mean voters of all kinds aren’t concerned about other economic problems (affordability of housing various places, and health care everywhere, for example) that have gotten worse. But the basic stats that have been focused on historically are relatively good, and that probably makes it harder to defeat the incumbent. Rather than it being a matter of one race of voter ‘hyping’ anything. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2020, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-white-americans-hyping-up-trumps-economy-the-most/846715/43 "2020-02-09T23:18:31Z")
> [@HMS\_Irruncible](#): > > Juice the economy with tax cuts when things are on the upswing, and claim credit for the hot economy. When the economy crashes and the Democrat gets elected, demand austerity and assign blame for the tepid recovery. That’s what you get with a 2-party, 4-year term system. You can do carefully calculated plans to goose or deflate the economy as you need, so as to ensure that you are constantly in power, or on the very of returning to power. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Hedonia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ann_hedonia/32/319_2.png) [@Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Hedonia)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2020, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-white-americans-hyping-up-trumps-economy-the-most/846715/44 "2020-02-10T01:54:02Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > I think this is spot on. > > One thing that I find interesting is that, in my experience, the typical person has no idea what their tax rate is (myself included). I’m not talking about what tax bracket they fall into (which most people presume is their tax rate, but is instead merely the rate at which the last portion of their salary is taxed), I’m talking about their actual effective tax rate. > > Meaning, people think “my taxes are lower” because they are told by politicians that they got a tax break, not because they’ve actually crunched the numbers and determined that they are paying a lower effective rate. > > This spreads to other economic indicators, as well. If the talking person on the TV says that markets are soaring, well, then I can take solace that I live in a good economy. If they furrow their brow and worry about a coming recession, then I might get concerned. > > So, the whole “the economy is good” argument is based on what people (who are already inclined to support Trump) have been told about the economy, and which they therefore think justifies their support. It isn’t people looking at their financial statements and drawing a conclusion from those. Even if somebody is making more money, or got a better job, I doubt that they can draw a straight line from that success and some sort of government policy that has recently been enacted. I think they revised the withholding tables after the latest tax cuts, so workers immediately saw a few extra bucks in their paychecks. And a few more bucks than they should’ve gotten, because of course the administration cheated. A lot of people that typically got refunds ended up with a tax bill, but by then the midterms were over. > **[Why millions of people are getting hit with a surprise tax bill this year](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/6/18214039/irs-tax-refund-withholding-trump)** > > Trump’s tax law screwed up withholdings in 2018. And people don’t realize that the tariffs are a back door tax anyway, prices are going up to cover tariffs. And it’s also a clever giveaway to business owners. A manufacturer I worked with raised their prices back in July. I expressed annoyance to my sales rep, because we had a substantial price increase in January. He told me they had to raise prices to cover new tariffs. I suggested that they TELL people that so they’d know who to blame. He laughed and said “You don’t really think the prices are coming back down when the tariffs are removed, do you?” So then I got it. Trump will roll back the tariffs, and business owners will get a windfall. We’ll still be paying more. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 11, 2020, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-white-americans-hyping-up-trumps-economy-the-most/846715/45 "2020-02-11T23:44:40Z")
> [@Ann\_Hedonia](#): > > I think they revised the withholding tables after the latest tax cuts, so workers immediately saw a few extra bucks in their paychecks. And a few more bucks than they should’ve gotten, because of course the administration cheated. A lot of people that typically got refunds ended up with a tax bill, but by then the midterms were over. > > [Trump tax bill and refunds: why fewer people are getting them - Vox](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/2/6/18214039/irs-tax-refund-withholding-trump) > > And people don’t realize that the tariffs are a back door tax anyway, prices are going up to cover tariffs. And it’s also a clever giveaway to business owners. > > A manufacturer I worked with raised their prices back in July. I expressed annoyance to my sales rep, because we had a substantial price increase in January. > > He told me they had to raise prices to cover new tariffs. I suggested that they TELL people that so they’d know who to blame. He laughed and said “You don’t really think the prices are coming back down when the tariffs are removed, do you?” > > So then I got it. Trump will roll back the tariffs, and business owners will get a windfall. We’ll still be paying more. You should have asked him to put that in writing… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-white-americans-hyping-up-trumps-economy-the-most/846715.md?page=2)