Realistically, how much damage could Trump do to the U.S. economy?

Noah Smith at Noahpinion:

Twenty-three Nobel-winning economists just signed a letter saying that Trump’s economic policies would be bad for the country. Some excerpts:

While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we believe that, overall, Harris’s economic agenda will improve our nation’s health, investment, sustainability, resilience, employment opportunities, and fairness and be vastly superior to the counterproductive economic agenda of Donald Trump.

His policies, including high tariffs even on goods from our friends and allies and regressive tax cuts for corporations and individuals, will lead to higher prices, larger deficits, and greater inequality…By contrast, Harris has emphasized policies that strengthen the middle class, enhance competition, and promote entrepreneurship. On issue after issue, Harris’s economic agenda will do far more than Donald Trump’s to increase the economic strength and well-being of our nation and its people.

Simply put, Harris’s policies will result in a stronger economic performance, with economic growth that is more robust, more sustainable, and more equitable.

I don’t have quite as much confidence in Harris’ economic policy program as these top economists do — I’m worried about the amount of debt it would incur — but she definitely does want to promote entrepreneurship and enhance competition. And I would expect her to continue Biden’s industrial policies, which (as regular readers all know) I am a huge fan of.

When it comes to the dangers of Trump’s policy program, I’m pretty much in complete agreement with what the economists say here. But I think it’s useful to lay out what I think the risks of these policies are, and which ones we should be especially worried about.

More here.

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