Make America Not Great Again + Obamaland

By NICK BUFFIE

During the 2022 presidential campaign, Donald Trump ran under the slogan "Make America Not bad Again". Although the first three words of the slogan were uncontroversial, the last i – "Again" – led many observers to wonder what foretime era Trump was referencing. His harshest critics claimed that he was referring to a time when racism was rampant and African-Americans didn't have the correct to vote. His supporters said that his message was more economic than racial: Trump was harkening back to an era when blue-collar jobs were plentiful, opioids were scarce, wages were growing, houses were cheap, and parents could assume that their children would lead improve lives than they did. But even if we accept the beneficial interpretation of #MAGA, it's hard non to notice that Trump'due south rhetoric is just that – rhetoric. When information technology comes to actually making America bang-up again, the pinnacle of success is Barack Obama, not Donald Trump.

When discussing the origins of the slogan, the president has emphasized the economical argument more than than the racial one. "I felt that jobs were hurting," he said. "[Make America Great Once again] meant jobs. It meant industry. And it meant military strength. It meant taking intendance of our veterans. It meant then much."

Trump has argued that the U.S. struck the right balance on these problems in the "late '40s and '50s" – a time when African-Americans and other minorities were strongly discriminated against, merely also when the economic system was booming, manufacturing jobs were plentiful and growing, disparities in both income and wealth were declining amongst Black and White Americans though gaps still existed, and almost all men of prime working age held jobs.

Later on the late 1960s, the U.S. entered an era of rise inequality and slowing growth. Politicians cut taxes for the wealthy, beginning those tax cuts with college taxes on poor and working-grade Americans, attacked labor unions, deregulated Wall Street, sat idly by as rising healthcare costs chipped away at workers' earnings, refused to increment the minimum wage in line with inflation or rising worker productivity, and kept the tipped minimum wage at $2.xiii/60 minutes for virtually thirty years.

This trend of hurting the vulnerable while enriching the affluent continued unabated for decades. And then 1 atypical President broke with that trend by enacting a series of pragmatic, intelligent reforms which profoundly improved the lives of America's most vulnerable citizens.

That President'southward name was Barack Obama.

By the time Obama left office, lower- and center-form Americans were experiencing faster income growth than the rich for the commencement time in decades. But later on Donald Trump arrived at the White Firm, household income growth shifted away from the poor back into the hands of the wealthy:

This shouldn't come up as much of a surprise. For all the give-and-take of how impersonal forces such equally technological advancement, globalization, and more have contributed to ascension inequality, it'south clear that the distribution of income growth has e'er had a somewhat partisan flavor:

Obama and Trump illustrate this contrast perfectly. Obama expanded taxation credits for low- and middle-income Americans; Trump cutting taxes for the rich. Obama enhanced financial regulation to hold bankers (rather than taxpayers) accountable for financial crises; Trump made information technology easier for financial advisers to lie to their customers. When it comes to economic populism, Trump has the rhetoric, but Obama has the results.

The single issue which best highlights this divide is healthcare reform. In order to make healthcare more affordable for disadvantaged Americans, Obama signed the Affordable Care Deed (also known as "Obamacare") into law in 2010. The ACA had ii aims: first, it would requite insurance coverage to poor Americans struggling with the cost of individual insurance; and second, information technology would slow the rate of healthcare price growth.

Obamacare succeeded in both of its aims. Through its success, it too boosted the incomes of the poor. The ACA subsidized healthcare coverage for uninsured Americans with incomes below 400% of the federal poverty line and paid for these subsidies with taxation increases on investment income (which goes disproportionately to the wealthy) and earnings above $250,000.[i] The Brookings Institution, when analyzing the direct redistributionary effects of the ACA, found that the law significantly increased after-tax incomes for Americans in the bottom 5th of the income distribution:

The ACA also boosted the incomes of the poor in a more subtle fashion. By reining in the ever-rising costs of wellness insurance, the ACA actually increased wages at the bottom of the income distribution. From an employer'due south perspective, $1 in wellness insurance premiums costs just as much as $one in wages, so rising premiums tend to crowd out wage growth. But when premiums fall, more of the money employers ready aside for labor goes to wages. Furthermore, since the fixed price of wellness insurance represents a greater share of compensation for low-wage workers than for loftier-wage ones, falling premiums lead to stronger relative wage gains for the poor than for the rich.

Employer spending on health insurance had been rising every bit a share of total labor costs for over 7 decades before the ACA's cost-containment provisions took effect in 2010. Merely when Obamacare was enacted, that trend reversed itself. From 2010 to 2016, employers began shifting compensation abroad from wellness insurance towards higher wages. Encouragingly, earnings grew the fastest for low-wage employees.

But in 2017, Trump stuck a pocketknife in this progress. His administration halted the ACA'due south "toll-sharing reduction" (CSR) payments to low-income Americans saddled with high out-of-pocket costs, which had the 2-fold effect of diminishing the government subsidy to the poor and increasing health insurance premiums. This issue only "makes America bully once again" if you believe that wage stagnation for the poor is an American virtue.

Donald Trump claims that he wanted to brand the economy work for poor and middle-class Americans – the same people who had been hurt past changes in the economic system after the late 1950s. There is just one trouble with that theory: Donald Trump didn't need to Make America Great Again. Barack Obama already did.

[i] The tax increase applies to annual family earnings in a higher place $250,000 and annual individual earnings in a higher place $200,000.

Nick Buffie is a first-twelvemonth Chief'due south in Public Policy pupil at the Harvard Kennedy School (HKS). Before coming to HKS, Nick spent three years working at 2 economic policy think tanks in Washington, DC. His research on wellness care reform, tax policy, labor markets, and other topics has been cited in theNew York Times,theWashington Mail service, Meet the Press, National Public Radio, and other nationally syndicated media outlets.

Edited by Nusheen Ameenuddin

buffumpoted1953.blogspot.com

Source: https://ksr.hkspublications.org/2019/03/22/barack-obama-made-america-great-again/

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