I doubt anyone has been waiting for my take on the Trump and Harris economic plans to decide their vote. More than that, it is entirely reasonable to vote based on things other than their economic plans entirely- like foreign policy, character, or preserving democracy. But either Trump or Harris will soon be President, and thinking through their economic plans can help us understand how the next 4 years are likely to go.

The bad news is that both campaigns keep proposing terrible ideas. The good news is that, thanks to our system of checks and balances, most of them are unlikely to become policy. The other good news is that our economy can handle a bit of bad policy- as Adam Smith said, there’s a lot of ruin in a nation. After all, the last Trump admin and the Biden-Harris admin did all sorts of bad economic policies, but overall economic performance in both administrations was pretty good; to the extent it wasn’t (bad unemployment at the end of the Trump admin, bad inflation at the beginning of Biden-Harris), Covid was the main culprit.

Note that this post will just be my quick reactions; the Penn Wharton Budget Model has done a more in-depth analysis. They find that Harris’ plan is bad:

We estimate that the Harris Campaign tax and spending proposals would increase primary deficits by $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years on a conventional basis and by $2.0 trillion on a dynamic basis that includes a reduction in economic activity. Lower and middle-income households generally benefit from increased transfers and credits on a conventional basis, while higher-income households are worse off.

But Trump’s plan is worse:

We estimate that the Trump Campaign tax and spending proposals would increase primary deficits by $5.8 trillion over the next 10 years on a conventional basis and by $4.1 trillion on a dynamic basis that includes economic feedback effects. Households across all income groups benefit on a conventional basis.

We are already running way too big a deficit; candidates should be competing to shrink it, not make it worse. This isn’t just me being a free-market economist; Keynes himself would be saying to run a surplus in good economic times so that you have room to run a deficit in the next recession.

Now for my lightning round of quick reactions:

No tax on tips: both campaigns are now proposing this; it is a silly idea, there is no reason to treat tips differently from other income. The good news is that this almost certainly won’t make it through Congress.

Taxes: Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 is set to expire in 2025. He says he wants to renew it and add more tax cuts, though he will need a friendly Congress to do so. Harris wants to let most of it expire, but renew and expand the Child Tax Credit while raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations. There’s a good chance we end up with divided government, in which case probably only the most popular parts of TCJA (increased standard deduction and child tax credit) get renewed and no big new changes happen.

Price controls: both campaigns, especially Harris‘, have talked about fighting ‘price gouging’, leading economists to worry about the price controls (any intro micro class explains why these are a bad idea). My guess is that no real bill gets passed, President Harris gets the FTC to make a show of going after grocery stores but nothing major changes.

Tariffs: Harris would probably leave them where they are; Trump is promising to raise them 10-20% across the board and 60% on China. This would lead to higher prices for US consumers and invite retaliation from abroad; we saw the same things when Trump raised tarriffs in his first term, but he is promising bigger increases now. This is worrisome because the President has a lot of power to change tariffs unilaterally; it would take a bill getting through Congress to stop this, and I don’t see that happening.

Regulation / One in two out: The total amount of Federal regulation stayed fairly flat during the Trump administration thanks to his one in two out rule, while regulation increased during the Biden-Harris administration. I expect that a second Trump admin would behave like the first here, while a Harris admin would continue the Biden-Harris trend.

Antitrust: FTC and DOJ have been aggressive during the Biden-Harris administration, blocking reasonable mergers and losing a lot in court. But Trump’s VP candidate JD Vance thinks FTC Chair Lina Khan is “doing a pretty good job”, so we could see this poor policy continue either way. More generally, voters should consider what a Vance presidency would look like, because making him Vice President makes it much more likely (Trump is 78 and people keep trying to shoot him; plus VPs get elected President at high rates).

Immigration: Immigration rates have been high under the Biden-Harris admin, while Trump’s top two planks in his platform are “seal the border” and “carry out the largest deportation operation in American history”. Economically, this would lead to a reduction in both supply and demand in many sectors, with the relative balance (so whether prices go up or down) depending on the sector. The exclusion of Mexican farmworkers in the 1960’s led to a huge increase in mechanization, to the point that domestic farmworkers saw no increase in their wages; presumably this also limited the potential harm to the food supply.

Crypto: The Biden admin has been fairly negative on crypto; both Harris and Trump are making pro-crypto statements in their campaigns, particularly Trump.

Marijuana: The Biden admin is in the process of rescheduling marijuana to no longer be in the most restricted category of drugs. I think Trump would probably see the process through, while Harris definitely would.

Elon Musk / Civil Service: Elon Musk has thrown his support hard behind Trump, spending lots of money, tweeting continuously, and attending rallies. It’s hard to know how much of this is genuine support for a range of Trump’s policies, how much is to get the Federal government to stop suing his companies so much, and how much is to get himself a direct role in government. In any case, it is a safe bet that more Federal civil servants get fired in a Trump admin than in a Harris admin. What’s much harder to say is how many get fired, and what proportion of firings come from a genuine attempt to improve efficiency vs a purge of those Trump sees as disloyal. Personally I think government could stand to treat its employees a bit more like the private sector, making it easier to fire people for genuine poor performance (not political views), but also allowing for more flexibility on improved pay, benefits, and the ability to focus on achieving goals more than following the way things have always been done. But I doubt that’s on the table either way.

CFTC/ Prediction Markets: The Biden CFTC has tried to crack down on prediction markets, though they have mostly failed in the courts, and the growth of Kalshi and Polymarket mean that prediction markets are now bigger than ever. Most of the anti-prediction-market decisions have been 3-2 votes of the democrats vs the republicans, so a new republican appointee could lock in the legal gains prediction markets have made, though this is far from guaranteed (not all Rs support this).

Final Thoughts: So much of how things turn out will depend not just on who wins the Presidency, but on whether their party wins full control of Congress. Because the Democrats have a lot more Senate seats up for grabs this year, Harris is much more likely to be part of a divided government (especially once you consider the Supreme Court).

Because of this, and because of the ability of the President to raise tariffs unilaterally, I see Trump as the bigger risk when it comes to economic prosperity, as well as non-economic issues. Harris with a Republican Senate is the best chance of maintaining something like the status quo, whereas a Trump victory is likely to see bigger changes, many of them bad.

That said, predicting the future is hard, and this applies doubly to Presidential terms. I’m struck by how often in my lifetime the most important decisions a President had to make had nothing to do with what the campaign was fought over. Who knew in 1988 that the President’s biggest task would be managing the breakup of the Soviet Union? In 2000, that it would be responding to 9/11? Bush specifically tried to distinguish himself from Gore as being the candidate more against “nation-building”, then went on to try just that in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2004, who knew that the biggest issue of the term would be not Social Security or foreign policy, but a domestic financial crisis and recession? In 2016, who knew that they were voting on the President that would respond to the Covid pandemic? In 2020, who knew that they were voting on who would respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

The most important issue for the next President could easily be how they address China or AI, because those are clearly huge deals. I won’t vote based on this, because I don’t know who has the better plan for them, because I have no idea what a good plan looks like. Or the most important issue could be something that comes completely out of left field, like Covid did. Not even the very wise can see all ends.

What I do know is that, while much of the Libertarian Party has recently gone from its usual “goofy-crazy” to “mean-crazy“, Chase Oliver is so far the only candidate pandering to me personally. But it’s not too late for other politicians at all levels to try the same.

See you all again next Thursday, by which time the election will, I hope, be over.