http://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-is-the-most-liberal-republican-on-economics-since-nixon-2015-12-14
One presidential candidate wants to end loopholes for the “very rich.” He’s against trade deals that allow foreign “sweatshops” to steal American jobs. He backs “prevailing wages” for U.S. positions filled by foreigners with special visas. He supports universal health-care coverage and an “individual mandate.” And he says he’s the guy to rebuild America, a job that could cost hundreds of billions of tax dollars.
Bernie Sanders? Nah. Try Donald Trump. Read: Trump wins Las Vegas caucus.
The wealthy businessman, who suddenly looks like a shoo-in for the Republican presidential nomination, breaks all political molds. His hodgepodge of economic views reflects an old-style populist and modern media maven who combines some traditional conservative positions with ideas long tied to the political left.
The Republican Party hasn’t fielded a candidate who departs so much from conservative economic orthodoxy since Richard Nixon in 1972.
Worried about reelection, Nixon boosted federal spending and imposed wage and price controls in the early 1970s to tame rising inflation, an approach that ultimately failed. He also pressured the Federal Reserve to adopt easy money.
At one point, Nixon is reported to have said: “I am now a Keynesian in economics.”
Trump doesn’t go nearly as far as Nixon. Yet in an era when most Republicans have turned increasingly conservative on economic issues, Trump almost sounds downright liberal.
Consider his attacks on “special interests.” Trump has repeatedly said the wealthy already get too many tax breaks and they should pay more, sounding much like Democrats Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
His stump speech frequently lambastes companies such as health insurers and drugmakers as cancerous influences on Washington who use their money to buy votes. Most lawmakers, including his Republican presidential rivals, are beholden to them.
Not Trump. “I am spending my own money,” he said Monday at a Las Vegas rally. “I don’t need their money. Very important.”
While Trump says he favors “free trade,” long a Republican economic staple, he blames unfair practices of foreign nations such as China for costing jobs.
“No more sweatshops or pollution havens stealing jobs from American workers,” says the Trump campaign website in a clarion call for “fair trade.”
Sanders, who calls himself a Democratic socialist, has repeatedly made the same argument in voting against every major trade deal during his long career in Washington.
“I think they have been a disaster for the American worker,” he charges. “I do not want American workers to competing against people in Vietnam who make 56 cents an hour for a minimum wage.”
The arguments of both Trump and Sanders harken back to conservative economic nationalist Pat Buchanan, who was one of the first major politicians to complain in the 1990s that free trade was killing the American middle class. Buchanan appears to approve of Trump’s campaign.
Another major issue on which Trump departs from fellow Republicans is health care.
Once a self-professed liberal on health care, Trump has become a biting critic of the law commonly known as Obamacare. And yet Trump still believes in a critical Washington role. He’s backed a proposal to create a national health-care system — Trumpcare anyone? — similar to one offered to federal employees that is government run.
The biggest opposition to his own health-care plan, Trump insists, is likely to come from the drug firms and health insurers that own Washington politicians.
Not all of Trump’s economic views are outside the conservative mainstream. Unlike Democrats, he supports lower personal and corporate taxes and a reduction in regulations. He blames current policies for driving companies out of the U.S. and shackling the economy.
Yet if American companies continue to move to Mexico or other countries, Trump repeated his promise in Las Vegas to slap a 35% tariff on any goods they try to send back to the United States.
Whatever the case, Trump’s eclectic mix of economic views would certainly make for interesting times in the nation’s capitol if he’s elected. He could face implacable resistance from Republicans on some of his economic ideas, get a warmer reception from Democrats on others — and face unified opposition from both parties on still other proposals.
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I was just thinking last nite how Trump reminds me of old Tricky Dick, except more brash, thin-skinned, and catty. But very similar mixed back on economics.
So while Trump sounds like the new non-establishment candidate, his policies sound like the old Rockefeller wing of they party.
