No. of Recommendations: 6
Yes, those are only two small examples, but Irecall that in the first administration they were wholly unprepared to win, and now they’ve had eight years to put the mechanisms in place and consider how to best leverage their advantage. Again, forget the C&B of the USSC, only the legislature stands in the way, and depending how the votes tally out that might not be much of a firewall.
Yes - but I thought we were talking about the macroeconomy.
Sure, Trump can have a big impact on how the federal government does things. But remember, the federal government is largely an insurance company with an army. Social security, Medicare, defense, and servicing the national debt. To a first order of approximation, that's the U.S. government. The rest of it - the stuff that Trump can or will actually mess with - is a rounding error relative to the size of the economy.
The only real levers he has to pull on that could affect the economy are international trade and foreign policy. Unlike most domestic economic matters, where most of the field has been occupied by Congressional legislation, the President has a lot of control over tariffs and trade. A lot of the authority to set tariffs has been delegated to the Executive, and his role in negotiating treaty - subject to review by the Senate and not the House - gives him some additional flexibility. And of course, exercising foreign policy can have a macro effect on the economy, especially when it comes to China and the Middle East.
But for the most part, the federal government is only one of many factors that affect the macroeconomy, and the policy choices of the President are themselves only a small part of the federal government. Regardless of his wishes, and no matter how cooperative SCOTUS might be, it's also hard to do anything quickly in the federal government - the APA makes mockery of all Presidential efforts, large or small, to change the direction of the bureaucratic leviathan. And Trump turns into a lame duck the moment he takes the oath, and especially so once the midterms happen - and agencies will still pay very close attention to what the chairs of their appropriating committees think and want, since they may long outlast Trump.
So while Trump may wreak havoc within the Executive, his impact on the broader economy will be much more limited. As will Harris', for good or ill. The President is important, but not that important a determinant of how things go.
