Aside From Cutting Taxes On The Rich & Dumping Regulations, Will Trump & Musk Try To Do Anything?

Biden Actually Did Accomplish Stuff Trump Says He Wants To Do

Say what you will about Biden, he did come into office with a strong agenda to revitalize American manufacturing, aiming to rebuild domestic supply chains, create union jobs, and reduce reliance on foreign production— especially from China. Some of it was a lot like what Trump talked about but could never accomplish. His approach was basically a combination of industrial policy and economic nationalism, with an emphasis on green energy and advanced technologies. With virtually no support from congressional Republicans, the Democrats passed and Biden signed legislation to make this agenda real, starting with the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (2021) which was so close that Kamala Harris had to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate. This $1.2 trillion bill prioritized rebuilding roads, bridges and water systems while modernizing ports and airports, laying the foundation for smoother domestic manufacturing logistics. Much of the resources went to red states and red counties and many Republicans who voted against it, tried taking credit for the spending in their own districts.

In the House, there were a couple dozen Republicans who broke with their party and voted for the CHIPS and Science Act, which allocated $52 billion to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research and reducing dependence on overseas production. Similarly, almost 20 House Republicans crossed the aisle for the Inflation Reduction Act, which focused heavily on clean energy manufacturingby providing incentives for electric vehicles, battery production, and renewable energy components, aiming to position the U.S. as a global leader in green technology manufacturing.

Biden also tightened rules requiring federal projects to source materials and products domestically, strengthening U.S. steel, construction materials, and supply chain industries. And while maintaining tariffs on Chinese goods implemented while  Trump was in the White House, Biden paired those with subsidies and incentives rather than relying solely on punitive measures.

The problem, of course, was that much of the funding ended up in corporate hands rather than directly empowering workers or building union strength. Even so, the agenda represents the most ambitious effort to reinvest in American manufacturing since the mid-20th century.

A significant portion of government aid from Biden's manufacturing initiatives has flowed to red states and counties. A study shows that most of the clean energy investments since the Inflation Reduction Act’s enactment have been directed toward Republican-held areas. Same thing with the investments from the CHIPS Act. The resources flowed overwhelmingly to places in Arizona, Ohio and Texas. The investments from Biden’s industrial polices were meant to boost economic growth and job creation in lagging areas which happen to mostly be in red states, aligning with his goal of revitalizing American manufacturing and infrastructure nationwide. However, this distribution has also sparked political discussions. Republicans, of course, refused to credit Biden with the economic benefits arising in their regions. Why we keep seeing in these backward, poorly-educated, brainwashed areas is that voters prioritize cultural, social and identity issues over economic considerations. Concerns related to gun-nuttery, misogyny, anti-LBGTQ bigotry and religionist “values” outweigh economic benefits so, at least in terms of short term politics, the efforts were a waste. There were even backward residents— influenced by Fox and other rightist media— who viewed federal investments as government overreach, a perspective leading to a preference for right-wing politics.

Yesterday, Shawn Donnan, Nazmul Ahasan and Alexandre Tanzi reported what a hopeless mess these backward red counties are. “Trump,” they wrote, “won in the places that have seen the slowest growth since the pandemic… Harris won by a landslide the counties that are the biggest components of the US economy— places that have on average roared back from the pandemic recession. She took 83 of the 100 largest counties by real GDP. Those 100 counties together account for more than half of US output. That split largely reflects the urban-rural economic divide in America that has also become a political one… The US overall draws 10% of its GDP from manufacturing. But many counties are more dependent on the sector than that. Trump won 1,308 of the 1,463 counties that have a greater reliance on manufacturing than the US as a whole. The average growth in those places between 2019 and 2023 was around 7%. That recovery was boosted in part by Biden’s industrial policy, but was still slower than in counties nationwide, which grew 8.4% over that time.

That doesn’t tell the whole story, though. Larger counties with big manufacturing economies have done much better economically since the pandemic and still went to Trump. That suggests Trump’s resonance in these places isn’t just about how the economy felt on the ground during the Biden administration, but rather reflects a broader divide between Trump-supporting blue-collar America and the college-educated white-collar voters that embraced Harris. Across the US, almost 30 million people live in the 650 counties with local economies that had not recovered to their pre-pandemic real GDP at the end of 2023. Trump won 576 of them. On average, those slow-recovery counties that went for Trump had economies that were still 6.6% smaller at the end of 2023 than at the end of 2019, just before the Covid-19 pandemic. Those were often smaller counties by both GDP and population.”

The trio of Bloomberg reporters wrote that “The combined output of counties won by Harris is larger than in those won by Trump. If you were to combine the more than 2,600 counties won by Trump into one country, their inflation-adjusted economic output would total $8.1 trillion. That’s nothing to sniff at, but the comparable Harris economy would be far larger. The Harris economy had a real GDP of $13.6 trillion— bigger than those of Germany, Japan and India combined.”

They made a point of reminding their readers about the price of Musk’s financial support for Trump’s campaign: the DOGE nonsense. A problem with that is that Trump won the backward parts of the country that are most dependent on government subsidies, which certainly clashes with one of his big promises (and Musk’s and the billionaire class’s big demand)— reining in Big Government. The DOGE will “face at least one inconvenient reality in that task: Benefits like Social Security and Medicare account for a large portion of government spending, and the places that depend on them most overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Trump won almost eight in 10 of the counties in the US in which residents drew more than 40% of their collective income from government benefits in 2022… Trump promised during the campaign that he wouldn’t touch Social Security or Medicare. As more Baby Boomers retire, they’re drawing on benefits that have long been seen as politically sacrosanct. The question for the Trump administration is whether it will continue to treat those benefits as untouchable if doing so bumps up against its plans for cuts— and what that would mean for Trump’s party the next time voters go to the ballot box.”

McDowell County, West Virginia has been plagued by a declining coal industry and high unemployment. A very substantial portion of residents depend on government assistance programs such as Social Security, Medicare and SNAP benefits. Trump absolutely crushed Kamala there:

• Trump- 4,310 (79%)

• Harris- 1,036 (19%)

Hopeless? Maybe, but in 2016, the voters in McDowell County rallied behind… Bernie. And it wasn’t just that he beat Hillary 55.5% to 29.9%. On the same day that 1,453 McDowell voters were smart enough to vote for Bernie, just 760 voted for Trump. In fact, more people voted for Bernie than for Trump, Ted Cruz and every other Republican combined. That’s right, Bernie received 1,453 votes and all the Republicans combined received 831 votes.

And yet, even though Trump failed to do anything to make their lives better during his first term, the reputation of his unkept promises to revitalize industries such as coal and manufacturing still resonate with voters in economically distressed areas like McDowell County, offering hope for job creation and economic improvement. They tend to view programs like Social Security, Medicare and even food stamps as earned entitlements rather than government “welfare,” differentiating them from other forms of assistance and aligning with right-wing viewpoints on government spending. So Trump’s and Musk’s efforts to reduce government spending are going to have to carefully consider the potential impact on constituencies that are both supportive of MAGA candidates and dependent on government aid. Balancing Paul Ryan era Austerity— which is what Musk aims for— with the needs of these communities requires the kind of nuance Trump has never demonstrated to address economic vulnerabilities without alienating key voter bases.

Trump is expected to implement several policy shifts aimed at reshaping the U.S. economic landscape, particularly concerning manufacturing and trade, reintroducing and broadening tariffs on imports from the top U.S. trading partners: China, Mexico and Canada. The aim, as it always is with tariffs, to protect American industries by making foreign products more expensive, thereby encouraging domestic production. Over all, this probably won’t work.

He also intends to implement corporate tax cuts that he claims will stimulate economic growth and greatly roll back regulations that protect consumers, the environment and worker safety, lowering operational costs for businesses, fostering a more conducive environment for industrial growth at the expense of society in general and the working class that put him in office in particular.