To summarize: The parts of Trump’s economic plan that are familiar to Republicans are unresponsive to current challenges; the parts that are novel are horrifyingly destructive. There are at least three major economic and political problems with Trump’s economic approach, which should have been obvious even to the non-economists on the campaign. Second, Trump’s economic approach would explode government debt (through tax cuts and massive infrastructure spending) while completely ignoring the United States’ long-term fiscal crisis. The Trump campaign clearly intended the Detroit speech to appease economic conservatives by sounding slightly less like Bernie Sanders. A major policy address is a different kind of test for a presidential campaign than building a crowd or controlling damage after gaffes.

Source: Washington Post August 11, 2016 23:37 UTC