Presidential Election of 2024

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    in Economy

    From Tips to TikTok, Trump Swaps Policies With Aim to Please Voters

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    The former president’s economic agenda has made some notable reversals from the policies he pushed while in the White House.At his convention speech last month, former President Donald J. Trump declared that his new economic agenda would be built around a plan to eliminate taxes on tips, claiming that the idea would uplift the middle class and provide relief to hospitality workers around the country.“Everybody loves it,” Mr. Trump said to cheers. “Waitresses and caddies and drivers.”While the cost and feasibility of the idea has been questioned by economists and tax analysts, labor experts have noted another irony: As president, Mr. Trump tried to take tips away from workers and give the money to their employers.The reversal is one of many that Mr. Trump has made in his bid to return to the presidency and underscores his malleability in election-year policymaking. From TikTok to cryptocurrencies, the former president has been reinventing his platform on the fly as he aims to attract different swaths of voters. At times, Mr. Trump appears to be staking out new positions to differentiate himself from Vice President Kamala Harris or, perhaps, just to please crowds.To close observers of the machinations of Mr. Trump’s first term, the shift on tips, a policy that has become a regular part of his stump speech, has been particularly striking.“Trump is posing as a champion of tipped restaurant workers with his no-tax-on-tips proposal, but his actual record has been to slash protections for tipped workers at a time when they were struggling with a high cost of living,” said Paul Sonn, the director of National Employment Law Project Action, which promotes workers’ rights.In 2017, Mr. Trump’s Labor Department proposed changing federal regulations to allow employers to collect tips that their workers receive and use them for essentially any purpose as long as the workers were paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. In theory, the flexibility would make it possible for restaurant owners to ensure that cooks and dishwashers received part of a pool of tip money, but in practice employers could pocket the tips and spend them at their discretion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Suggests that President Should Have a ‘Say’ in Interest Rates

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    Donald J. Trump suggested presidents should have input on interest rates, a comment likely to stoke fears that he could try to limit the Federal Reserve’s political independence.Donald J. Trump suggested on Thursday that the president should have a say in setting interest rates — a comment that could rekindle fears that the Republican nominee might try to influence the politically independent Federal Reserve if he is re-elected to the White House.“I feel that the president should have at least say in there, yeah, I feel that strongly,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference Thursday at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, referring to the rate-setting process. “I think I have a better instinct than, in many cases, people that would be on the Federal Reserve, or the chairman.”Mr. Trump made a habit of loudly criticizing Fed policy while he was in office, often personally attacking Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair.Mr. Trump elevated Mr. Powell to his leadership position, to which President Biden has since reappointed him. But Mr. Powell angered Mr. Trump by keeping interest rates higher than he would have preferred. Mr. Trump responded by calling the Fed chair and his colleagues “boneheads” and at another point asking in a social media post who was a bigger “enemy,” Mr. Powell or Xi Jinping, China’s president.Mr. Trump acknowledged that history of animosity on Thursday, saying that he “used to have it out with him.”While Mr. Trump flirted with the idea of firing Mr. Powell during his time in the Oval Office, it is not clear whether it would be legal to dismiss or demote a sitting Fed chair. In the end, Mr. Trump never tried it. Still, there have been big questions about what might await the Fed if Mr. Trump were to win re-election. Mr. Powell’s term as chair runs to mid-2026.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Dangles New Tax Cut Proposals With Real Political Appeal

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    The most recent and costliest of Mr. Trump’s ideas would end income taxes on Social Security benefits.First it was a tax cut for hotel and restaurant workers in Nevada, a swing state where Donald J. Trump proposed exempting tips from taxes. Then, in front of powerful chief executives gathered in Washington, Mr. Trump floated cutting the corporate tax rate, helping to ease concerns in the business community about his candidacy.Now Mr. Trump is calling for an end to taxing Social Security benefits, which could be a boon for retirees, one of the most politically important groups in the United States.Repeatedly during the campaign, Mr. Trump and Republicans have embraced new, sometimes novel tax cuts in an attempt to shore up support with major constituencies. In a series of social-media posts, at political rallies, and without formal policy proposals, Mr. Trump has casually suggested reducing federal revenue by trillions of dollars.While policy experts have taken issue with the ideas, Mr. Trump’s pronouncements have real political appeal, at times putting Democrats on their back foot. Nevada’s two Democratic senators and its powerful culinary union have endorsed ending taxes on tips. The AARP supports tax relief for seniors receiving Social Security benefits, though it has not taken a position on Mr. Trump’s proposal.“You do have to scratch your head a little bit when someone’s going around offering free lunches everywhere,” said Jesse Lee, a Democratic consultant and former Biden White House official. “We’re all for people having their lunch, but we have to raise taxes on the wealthy to pay for it.”The most recent and most expensive of Mr. Trump’s plans is ending income taxes on Social Security benefits, which could cost the federal government as much as $1.8 trillion in revenue over a decade, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. That would burn through the program’s financial reserves more quickly and hasten the moment when the government is no longer able to pay out Social Security benefits in full under current law.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    JD Vance Pioneered ‘New Right’ Economics. Trump May Not Embrace It.

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    The vice-presidential nominee favors economic policies that help advance a socially conservative vision of American society — and that sometimes clash with Trump’s own plans.Senator JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, is a pioneer in what friends and critics alike call a new form of Republican economic thinking. It’s a vision to steer the economy toward advancing socially conservative goals, even when those policies defy conservative orthodoxy about government intervention in private markets.Those who know him well say Mr. Vance’s economic views have evolved to match his deepening commitment to social conservative causes, along with his growing anger at the role large companies play in shaping American society and politics.Mr. Vance has built his brief political career on that new brand of economic populism.He has championed efforts to reward families for having children, with tax breaks that some Republican economists say discourage people from working. He has also pushed to disempower large businesses, particularly tech companies that Mr. Vance and his allies say have used their market power to silence conservatives and hurt workers and children, through support for aggressive antitrust enforcement and even some corporate tax increases.“He’s a social conservative first,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington who has known Mr. Vance and discussed policy with him for years, well before he decided to enter politics.“The economic policy is in service of this broader social vision, where you don’t have to go to college to earn a middle-class wage,” Mr. Strain said. “Where your kids are safe from the tech companies. And where these big businesses, run by elites, are not a threat to local companies.”Since taking office in 2023, Mr. Vance has supported raising the minimum wage for people authorized to work in the United States, cast doubt on the virtues of corporate tax cuts and privately expressed admiration for some of the economic stances of Senator Elizabeth Warren, a liberal Democrat from Massachusetts, whom he has joined to push legislation cracking down on big banks. He has also called Lina Khan, the Federal Trade Commission chair whose aggressive antitrust agenda has angered business groups and many Republicans, one of the few Biden administration officials who is doing a “pretty good job.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Promises Lower Interest Rates, but the President Doesn’t Control Those

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    The Federal Reserve sets interest rates, and it operates independently of the White House. But rates could come down as inflation cools.Former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential race, promised lower interest rates — which a president does not actually control — if he is elected.Asked on Wednesday what he would do on “Day 1” of a new presidency during a panel at the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Chicago, Mr. Trump said one priority would be to “drill, baby, drill,” the shorthand tagline he has adopted for promoting oil and gas production in the United States.“I bring energy way down, I bring, interest rates are down, I bring inflation way down,” Mr. Trump expanded.The president exerts no direct control over interest rates. The Federal Reserve sets a key policy rate, which then trickles out to influence borrowing costs across the economy, and the Fed is independent from the White House.Mr. Trump has at times implied that the Fed will lower rates because inflation is likely to be lower on his watch, which could have been what he meant on Wednesday. Economists have suggested that some of his proposed policies may in fact speed up inflation.Still, the candidate’s comments underscore how politically salient both price increases and high interest rates remain as the Nov. 5 election nears, even after years in which inflation has been gradually cooling. And they make it clear that the coming months are likely to be politically fraught for the Fed as the technocratic institution tries to stay outside the political fray.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    With Kamala Harris, U.S. Free Trade Skepticism May Continue

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    The vice president has been critical of past trade deals. But her record suggests she could push for trade measures that address environmental issues.In a 2019 presidential debate, Kamala Harris insisted, “I am not a protectionist Democrat.”But Ms. Harris is not a free-trade Democrat, either. She has said she would have opposed the North American Free Trade Agreement of 1992, which President Biden voted for while serving in the Senate, as well as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an agreement supported by the Obama administration. And in 2020, she was one of only 10 senators to vote against the deal to replace NAFTA, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.As she pursues the presidential nomination, Ms. Harris’s views on trade and economic issues are likely to become a focal point. Yet unlike former President Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, trade has never been a major focus for Ms. Harris. As a result, her positions on trade issues are not entirely known.William A. Reinsch, the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, called Ms. Harris “a bit of a blank slate, but one most likely to be filled in with trade skepticism.”In part that is because of her no vote on the U.S.M.C.A., which Mr. Reinsch said “leads me to assume she is part of the progressive wing of the party which is skeptical of trade agreements in general, and particularly of those that involve market access.” But, he said, “there’s not a lot out there to go on.”Still, in her time as a senator from California and as the vice president, Ms. Harris has adopted some recurring positions that hint at what trade policy might look like if she wins the White House. For example, on several occasions, her objection to trade deals revolved around a common issue: their impact on the environment, and their lack of measures to address climate change.While the U.S.M.C.A. was negotiated by the Trump administration, it won over many Democrats by including tougher protections for workers and the environment. But Ms. Harris concluded that the deal’s environmental provisions were “insufficient — and by not addressing climate change, the U.S.M.C.A. fails to meet the crises of this moment.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    2025 Could Be a Great Time to Be President, Economically Speaking

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    Trends already underway make for a sunny outlook over the next few years. The question is who will get to take credit.The next couple of years are shaping up to be solid for the U.S. economy. Inflation is returning to normal. As that happens, the Federal Reserve is preparing to cut interest rates. A huge burst of infrastructure spending under the Biden administration has taken time to ramp up, but projects both small and large are likely to break ground in earnest in 2025 and 2026.Things can always go wrong — the job market could cool more than expected, financial market problems could surface, and risks tied to the election in November could stoke uncertainty — but the base-case outlook is bright. The question now is who will get to take credit for it.One clear answer: It won’t be the person who shepherded some of the policies that are laying the positive groundwork. President Biden announced on Sunday that he was ending his candidacy for re-election, passing the Democratic baton to Vice President Kamala Harris.Mr. Biden isn’t entirely responsible for the sunny outlook. White House officials play a relatively minor role in slowing inflation and exert no direct control over interest rates. But big policy packages passed on his watch are helping to fuel a burst in green-energy, manufacturing and infrastructure investment that is expected to continue over the next several years. Expansions of dams and locks will be underway. Dozens of airport upgrades will be completed. Semiconductor factories will begin churning out chips.It’s a reminder that big and potentially transformative public investments can take time — and multiple political cycles — to play out. It could also be an opportunity for the next resident of the White House to take a victory lap.Former President Donald J. Trump is already hinting at an optimistic future on the campaign trail. The Republican platform, which he had a heavy hand in shaping, pledged to “destroy inflation” and vowed that interest rates would be lower while declaring that the Republican Party will be one of infrastructure and manufacturing. If economists’ most likely projections come true, those promises should be well within reach.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    On Economic Policy, Harris Has Played Limited Role

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    President Biden has not given his vice president an expansive economic portfolio. But she has engaged on issues of small-business lending, help for parents and more.Shortly after the Biden administration took office in 2021, Vice President Kamala Harris started calling the chief executives of large banks, including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.The federal government was making hundreds of billions of dollars available for banks to lend to small businesses to keep them afloat during the pandemic recession. Ms. Harris told the executives they needed to be lending more, faster, particularly to minority-owned businesses that data suggested were struggling to gain access to the money.The calls represented one of the earliest and most visible forays Ms. Harris made in devising and carrying out the Biden administration’s economic agenda, and illustrated the sort of economic policy niche that she has filled as vice president.Current and former administration officials, progressive leaders outside the White House and allies of Ms. Harris roundly agree that the vice president, who is now the leading candidate to secure the Democratic presidential nomination, did not play a major role in the creation of the sweeping economic legislation that has defined President Biden’s time in office.Ms. Harris was rarely a loud voice in major economic debates, like the ones over how to counter soaring inflation in 2021 and 2022. She did sometimes attend economic briefings, but was not always a big contributor in them. One attendee recalled her coming to an economic briefing, but simply listening to the presentation while Mr. Biden asked questions.Other officials say Ms. Harris largely focuses her questions for economists on how certain policies affect workers and families at a personal level — a trait she shares with the president.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More