Joe Biden’s campaign is touting a new economic analysis that shows his proposals would cost $7.3 trillion over a decade, raise taxes by $4.1 trillion, and increase deficits by an additional $3.2 trillion.
On Thursday, Andrew Bates, the rapid response director for the Biden campaign, tweeted out some highlights from a Moody Analytics study finding that if Democrats were to sweep into power, their economic policies would lead to more growth and lower unemployment than if President Trump were reelected with a Republican Congress.
These findings were not terribly surprising given the author of the study. Mark Zandi is a Keynesian who has traditionally given too much weight to the multiplier effects of federal spending. His model previously overstated the impact of the 2009 Obama economic stimulus package, for example. But Zandi has gained a high profile in the media due to the fact that he once did some modeling work for John McCain’s 2008 campaign and can thus be used to give bipartisan veneer to liberal economic policies and also because he makes himself readily available for comment.
But the fact that the Biden campaign is promoting this study is worth noting because it also finds that Biden’s spending proposals would cost $7.3 trillion. Specifically, Zandi finds Biden’s plans would spend $2.4 trillion on infrastructure, $1.9 trillion on education, $1.5 trillion on social welfare programs, and $1.5 trillion on healthcare.
Zandi projects that Biden’s plans would also increase taxes by $4.1 trillion, leading to a gap of $3.2 trillion on top of existing deficits.
To be clear, it isn’t as if Trump is some budget hawk in the Zandi analysis, as his policies would still add an additional $1.2 trillion to deficits.
But it is worth keeping in mind what a study being touted by the Biden campaign says about his fiscal policies.
