Will 2026 finally be the year when a critical mass of Americans wakes up and realizes that Republicans always screw up the economy? I doubt it. The idea that the party of big business must surely be more trustworthy on economic policy just seems intuitively right to most people, and the Democrats, in their typical way, have done a horrible job explaining this truth to people. Still—the evidence is getting hard to ignore, so perhaps there’s some hope.
Donald Trump inherited an economy from Joe Biden that was perhaps not firing on all cylinders but was in pretty good shape all the same. Real GDP grew at 2.8 percent in 2024. Wages were growing at a higher rate, 4.8 percent. Inflation closed out 2024 at 2.9 percent—high, but way down from the 7 percent of 2021. Compared to the EU and China, the U.S. economy was, as The Economist famously put it right before the election, “The envy of the world.”
What has Trump done? What he usually does: Make things worse. Real GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was 2 percent. Okay, you say, but that’s just a quarter. What about Trump’s first full year back on the job, so as to compare apples to apples? GDP growth in 2025 was 2.1 percent—substantially lower than Biden’s 2.9 for 2024. And inflation right now in the United States stands at 3.8 percent, way above the 2024 number.
And now, The New York Times told us Sunday, we’ve hit another grim milestone: The national debt is bigger than the economy. It’s true that presidents of both parties have racked up big debt numbers. In this century, Democratic and Republican presidencies have contributed almost equally to the explosion in the national debt, from around $5.8 trillion at the dawn of the century to $39 trillion today. But only one party carries on about how awful the debt is. So, it’s only that party, the Republicans, who are complete hypocrites about it.
As for the current economic mess—it’s virtually all Trump’s doing, in three major ways. First, there are the tax cuts in his one big ugly bill, which have not stimulated the economy in the way Republicans say tax cuts always do. That bill cut rich people’s taxes in several different ways—marginal income tax rate, estate tax, pass-through tax, and more.
Second, it’s the tariffs. It was obvious at the time other countries would retaliate against Trump’s tariffs, which is precisely what they did. The Federal Reserve estimated last fall that tariffs had raised consumer prices overall by 3.1 percent. It’s surely been worse since then, and now, the government is starting to return $166 billion in tariff revenue to importers after the Supreme Court ruled against the tariffs.
Third, of course, is the war in Iran, which has shot gas prices up near $5 a gallon in most places. The price of a barrel of oil today is around $105. What if it hits $150, which seems to many experts not just possible but inevitable if the war continues? That means a gallon of gas in the $6.50 range. And Trump said last week he didn’t care.
So here we go again: For the third straight time, a Democratic president handed a Republican president an economy that was at the least pretty good, and at most (Bill Clinton) really humming along very nicely. And, for the third straight time, the Republican has made things worse. Which also means that Democratic presidents have to clean up messes left by their GOP predecessors.
Let’s review. George H.W. Bush oversaw a savings and loan crisis that required a massive bailout and a double-dip recession. The one good thing he did late in his term was the one thing conservatives still revile him for—he agreed to a modest bipartisan tax increase to refill depleted federal coffers. But overall, he handed Clinton a horrible situation—and his people made it worse by leaking news during the transition of deficits far larger than anyone had previously predicted, just to box Clinton in and force him to scale back his domestic agenda.
Clinton still created the boomingest economy of the last 60 years (yes, more than Reagan) and turned those deficits into a surplus. Then, in came George W. Bush, who reduced taxes and started an expensive war and cut regulations such that no one was guarding the hen house when mortgage lenders created the housing bubble that eventually led to the Great Meltdown.
Then Barack Obama had to clean all that up. It took time, but he did, and he left office with 75 months of consecutive job growth and having substantially reduced the deficit. Trump inherited that, and here’s the twist: He didn’t make a hash of it for a while. He did increase the deficit with his 2017 tax cuts, but the economy still grew at a respectable clip. Then came the pandemic, and everything went kablooey.
Then Biden came in. The economy struggled, there’s no denying that. But by mid-2024, things were in decent shape. Granted, people weren’t feeling it. But the numbers, as I showed above, were much better than they are today. So, again, a Republican president, Trump 2.0, has come into office and made things worse. It’s what they do.
Why is this? Is it just bad luck? To some extent, the timing of the pandemic was bad luck for Trump, sure. But that isn’t the reason. The reason is that Republicans peddle an economic fairy tale. That cutting taxes increases revenue and spurs tremendous economic activity. It’s a lie. A fantasy. They wreck the economy. The modern United States has experienced 11 recessions. Ten have happened under Republican presidents. This isn’t a coincidence. They screw things up because they try to impose a fairy tale on the country.
Trump is different from other Republican presidents on certain matters (trade). But he’s same as the rest most of the time where it counts (tax cuts, favors for oligarchs and big business, a fondness for unnecessary wars). The result is economic calamity. Every time.
The Democrats need a 2028 standard-bearer who will say these things over and over until they get pounded into the heads of those famous low-information swing voters they end up relentlessly chasing after every fourth November. The lie has persisted long enough. If it takes $7 gas for people to realize it, I’ll happily pay it. Democrats—and reality—must bury this myth once and for all.
