Writing at City Journal, Clifford Asness notes that neither candidate on the debate stage Monday night seemed willing or able to defend free enterprise or conservative economic ideas. “There were many frustrating examples in the first debate of Donald Trump failing even to challenge Hillary Clinton’s obvious conceptual whoppers,” Asness writes. “Worse, when Trump did attempt a defense, he often cast free enterprise and business in a negative light. Trump simply can’t—or won’t, because it’s not what he truly believes—combat the falsehoods of progressivism, or honestly and skillfully defend free enterprise and business in general.”
Here’s an example he cites of Clinton’s economic ignorance:
Let’s start with Clinton’s claim that she’s going to pay for her laundry list of Bernie-Sanders-inspired new benefits by simply, in her words, “having the wealthy pay their fair share and close the corporate loopholes.” We certainly can debate what everyone’s “fair share” really should be. But Trump missed the chance to demonstrate the multiple mendacities, direct and implied, in her statement. Most important, he didn’t point out that the countries Clinton and Sanders admire pay for the “life of Denmark” (reminiscent of the Obama administration’s famous “life of Julia”) with far more regressive taxes, looking at the relevant total share of taxes paid, not just marginal tax rates on the “rich,” than here in the U.S.A. Honest liberal pundits have pointed out that to achieve the state with the size and scope desired by progressives, they will have to taxeveryone much more, particularly the middle class. No matter what you think about the “fair share” that the rich should pay, no serious person thinks taxing the wealthy alone will pay for a Scandinavian-style welfare state. Purely adding to the tax burden of the rich has never worked at this scale, mainly because there aren’t enough rich people to tax (there’s a reason we call them the 1 percent or even the 0.01 percent). The middle class, on the other hand, are legion and easily taxed.
The problem, Asness notes, is the supposedly pro-market party’s nominee can’t do much better. “Unfortunately for free-market conservatives and libertarians, we can’t count on the Republican nominee to articulate why progressive economic ideas are so often so wrong,” he writes. Here’s his example of Trump confirming an incorrect stereotype about economic conservatives:
When Trump was accused of rooting for the “collapse” that became the global financial crisis, he said, “That’s called business, by the way.” Every business person in America cringed at that moment. He might’ve pointed out that leaders who see things coming are preferable to those who are caught by surprise. He might’ve said that it’s a businessperson’s job to make the best possible forecast, and to act on it. We lionize the heroes of Michael Lewis’s book The Big Short for foreseeing and profiting from the crisis. Trump might’ve specifically said: “What’s the difference here, Mrs. Clinton? Why didn’t you see it coming while you were the senator from New York State—home of Wall Street—and act to prevent it? You didn’t even warn us about it.” He might’ve even pointed out that in “rooting” for the real-estate collapse, he was actually rooting for a normal bear market—yes, to profit, but also to bleed off speculative excess quickly and prepare the economy for the next leap forward (for instance, I proudly admit that I was “rooting” for the tech bubble to collapse in 1999-2000 when my firm was betting against some insane valuations). Trump should have clearly stated that he certainly wasn’t “rooting” for the devastating recession caused by the financial system seizing up. He might’ve pointed out that if more business people had seen what was happening and moved to profit from it earlier, the real-estate bubble would’ve been pricked, or at least caused less devastation. But, no, he left us with an even stronger version of the false narrative that Clinton intended—that what we call “business” is really just preying on regular people’s misery.
Read the whole thing here.
