THREE REASONS WHY TRUMP CLEARLY LOST THE DEBATE

ONE REASON why Donald Trump CLEARLY LOST the debate with Joe Biden, is that Trump lost the debate on the most important issue of the debate:

Who was the worst president in the history of our nation?

Biden made a good case for his claim that Donald Trump was the worst president that our country has ever had. So, Trump LOST on the most important issue of the whole debate (see my post “TRUMP’S LIES and the LYING LIARS Who Tell Them“).

A SECOND REASON why Donald Trump CLEARLY LOST the debate with Joe Biden, is that Trump lost the debate on an issue that Trump believes (or pretends to believe) is one of the most important issues that our country faces: IMMIGRATION. Trump LOST the debate on issues concerning IMMIGRATION for one simple reason:

Nearly every comment by Trump about IMMIGRATION was either a LIE or was BULLSHIT.

I have provided details about the many LIES about IMMIGRATION that Trump made during the debate (see my post “Trump CLEARLY LOST the Debate“).

A THIRD REASON why Donald Trump CLEARLY LOST the debate with Joe Biden, is that Trump LOST the debate on the issues that most Americans believe to be the most important issues that our country faces: issues about the health of our ECONOMY (i.e. Jobs, Taxes, Inflation, Trade, and Economic Growth).

IF, as I will argue, Trump LOST the debate on the issues that most Americans believe to be the most important issues that our country faces, THEN that means Trump LOST the debate in general.

Pew Research Center conducted a survey and showed that the health of our ECONOMY was considered by Americans to be the most important issue faced by our country:

During the debate, Trump and Biden made comments about these important subjects related to the health of our ECONOMY:

• JOBS
• TAXES
• INFLATION
• TRADE
• ECONOMIC GROWTH

TRUMP LOST ON JOBS

Just ONE single point made by Joe Biden shows that Trump is the LOSER on the issue of JOBS:

“He’s the only president other than Herbert Hoover who’s lost more jobs than he had when he began.” — President Biden

Mr. Biden is accurate that former President Donald J. Trump is the only president since World War II to leave office with a negative jobs record…

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/27/us/biden-trump-debate-fact-check

To be more specific, our economy had about 3 million fewer jobs when Trump left office than when he entered office:

Using January 2017 as a base line, when Mr. Trump was inaugurated,there were 145.6 million jobs, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.When he left in January 2021, there were 142.9 million jobs. That is a decline of 2.7 million jobs…

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/27/us/biden-trump-debate-fact-check

But during the Biden administration, our economy has gained over 15 million jobs (so far):

The economy has added more than 15 million jobs since January 2021.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/27/us/biden-trump-debate-fact-check

THEREFORE: It is clear that Trump is the LOSER on the issue of JOBS & EMPLOYMENT.

The only real question is how BIG of a LOSER Trump is concerning JOBS. Trump tried to minimize how much of a LOSER he was with this comment:

“The only jobs he created are for illegal immigrants.” — Former President Donald J. Trump

This was yet another LIE by Trump:

False.
[…]

The economy has added more than 15 million jobs since January 2021. Two groups that advocate lower levels of migration and stricter border security have estimated that there are 2.3 million to 2.5 million more unauthorized immigrants in 2023 than in 2020.

Overall, the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that 29.9 million foreign-born workers — both authorized and unauthorized — and 131.1 millionnative-born workers were employed in 2023. That is an increase of 5.1 million in employed foreign-born workers and 8.1 million native-born workers since 2020.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/27/us/biden-trump-debate-fact-check

Furthermore, the 5.1 million increase in employed foreign-born workers are NOT all illegal immigrants:

The data for foreign-born Americans includes anyone born outside the U.S., including immigrants who have been in the United States legally for decades.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/28/2024-presidential-debate-fact-check-biden-trump/

Trump also tried to minimize Biden’s success in terms of increased EMPLOYMENT with another comment:

Trump said of President Biden, “The only jobs he created were for illegal immigrants and ‘bounce-back jobs,’ a bounce-back from the Covid.”

Here Trump told TWO LIES in order to try to minimize Biden’s success with increasing JOBS. We have already seen that jobs for illegal immigrants was only a small portion of the more than 15 million JOBS that have been added to the economy during Biden’s administration.

While it is true that SOME of the added jobs were “bounce-back from the Covid” pandemic, there are three important points to keep in mind:

• Millions of the added jobs were NOT “bounce-back from Covid” jobs
• There was NO GUARANTEE that the jobs lost from the COVID pandemic would return in a matter of just a couple of years
• Trump is to blame for MOST of the 22 million jobs lost from the COVID pandemic because of his FAILURES concerning COVID

Employment on Biden’s watch passed its prepandemic level by June 2022, about a year and a half into his term. Since then, the U.S. economy has created an additional 6.2 million jobs.

https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/28/2024-presidential-debate-fact-check-biden-trump/

While it is true that all major statistics on the health of the economy go up and down over periods of years and decades, there is NO GUARANTEE that when there is a major economic downturn in some aspect of the economy that there will be a corresponding upturn in just a matter of months or in a couple of years. Sometimes, when the economy has a downturn it stays down in that aspect for several years.

Also, when there is an upturn after a downturn, there is NO GUARANTEE that the aspect of the economy in question will return to the previous level, we might well have to live with a “new normal” where we are worse off for many years or even for decades. There was NO GUARANTEE that the huge loss of jobs during the COVID pandemic would be completely reversed in a matter of just a couple of years. Therefore, Biden should get credit for the “bounce-back from Covid” jobs that were created during his administration.

Finally, the fact that about 22 million jobs were lost because of the COVID pandemic, does NOT let Trump off the hook for all of those lost jobs. Trump did a LOUSY JOB of handling the COVID pandemic, so he is to blame for MOST of the 22 million jobs that were lost. Most other countries did better than the USA in responding to the pandemic. Some European countries did an outstanding job of dealing with the COVID pandemic, so we could have done just as well, except for having an IGNORANT, ANTI-SCIENCE, SELFISH, LIAR as our president, who was incompetent in dealing with the COVID pandemic.

The EU responded quickly to COVID, more quickly than the US:

The US had the HIGHEST number of new COVID cases for most of the pandemic, and when India surpassed the US for three months in 2020, we had the 2nd HIGHEST number of new COVID cases among the most affected countries:

Trump’s LIES about JOBS and EMPLOYMENT fail to seriously minimize his blame for the loss of jobs during his administration, and they fail to seriously minimize Biden’s success in adding over 15 million jobs to our economy, so far.

TRUMP LOST ON TAXES

Biden: “I said I’d never raise the tax on anybody if you’re making less than $400,000. I didn’t.”

Mostly True. Biden has said repeatedly that he will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000, a promise he campaigned on in 2020.
He has not raised any individual income taxes on Americans earning less than $400,000 a year. …

https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/jun/28/2024-presidential-debate-fact-check-biden-trump/

This is an important good point made by Biden, and represents a BIG promise to Americans that he kept.

Trump LIED in order to fool people into believing that Biden plans to greatly increase their taxes:

“He wants to raise your taxes by four times.”
— Former President Donald J. Trump

False.
Many elements of the 2017 tax cut that Mr. Trump signed into law will expire in 2025, and Mr. Biden has proposed some tax increases on high-income earners and corporations. But this does not amount to a quadrupling of taxes.

The 2017 tax cut is expected to reduce the average tax rate by 1.4 percent in 2025, according to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, a left-leaning Washington think tank. Most in the top 5 percent of income would see the greatest change, by 2.4 percent.

Mr. Biden has also consistently said that he does not support raising taxes on people making under $400,000 a year and, in his latest budget, proposed extending tax cuts for those making under that threshold. Mr. Biden’s proposals would increase the average tax rate by about 1.9 percent, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis. The top 0.1 percent would see the biggest increase, of about 13.9 percent, while the low-income filers would see a reduction in taxes. That is no where near the 300 percent increase Mr. Trump warned of.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/27/us/biden-trump-debate-fact-check

Trump LIED about the Tax Cut he supported and that was implemented during his presidency:

“I gave you the largest tax cut in history.” —Trump

This is false. Trump’s tax cut amounted to nearly 0.9 percent of the gross domestic product, meaning it was far smaller than President Ronald Reagan’s tax cut in 1981, which was 2.89 percent of GDP. Trump’s tax cut is the eighth-largest tax cut in the past century — and even smaller than two tax cuts passed under Barack Obama. Trump’s tax cut was heavily tilted toward the wealthy and corporations.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/28/fact-check-presidential-debate/

Trump added about 8 Trillion dollars to our national debt, and 2 trillion of that was from his tax cuts (see: https://www.crfb.org/blogs/how-much-did-president-trump-add-debt). His tax cuts clearly favored wealthy people:

Households with incomes in the top 1 percent will receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center (TPC).

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver

 Biden pointed out a significant financial impact on Americans if Trump’s proposal to impose blanket tariffs on most imports were implemented (a “tariff” is a TAX paid on imported goods):

“Economists say that’s going to cost the average American $2,500 a year or more.” — President Biden

Estimates of the impact of an overall 10 percent tariff vary, but one recent analysis by the right-leaning American Action Forum estimated that a 10 percent tariff could impose additional annual costs of up to $2,350 per American household.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/27/us/biden-trump-debate-fact-check

Trump LIED when he denied there would be such an impact to Americans from his proposed new tax:

“Not going to drive them higher.” — Former President Donald J. Trump on whether tariffs would increase prices

This is false.
Tariffs are designed to protect domestic industries by raising the price of foreign products, and economists anticipate that any increase in tariffs would result in some increase in prices.

Economic studies found that the tariffs that Mr. Trump imposed on Chinese goods during his first term were largely paid by American consumers, rather than Chinese companies. In a recent letter,16 Nobel Prize-winning economists wrote that there was concern that Trump’s policies, including his plan to impose blanket tariffs on most imports, would reignite inflation.

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/06/27/us/biden-trump-debate-fact-check

Biden does NOT plan to increase taxes for low-income Americans nor for middle-class Americans (making up to $400,000/year). Only the wealthiest Americans and corporations would face a tax increase. Donald Trump, however, will impose a new tax (blanket tariffs on most imports) substantially raising costs of imported goods for all Americans, including low-income and middle-class Americans:

Trump is clearly the LOOSER on the issue of TAXES.

In the next post…

I will look at three other economic issues addressed during the debate:

• INFLATION
• TRADE
• ECONOMIC GROWTH