Transcript: Trump Tirades on Econ Go Awry as GOP Panics: “Disaster!”
Sergeant: You wrote in your article that Trump is particularly vulnerable here for other reasons as well. First, he campaigned as a populist. And secondly, it is his right-wing populist policies that play a major role. by worsening the crisis for workers. Can you explain this argument?
Shapiro: Of course. There are actually two dimensions. The first is that the government is constantly attacking affordability by subsidizing certain products. So we subsidize health care, not only through tax treatment, but also through ACA and Medicaid subsidies. Well, he cuts ACA subsidies and he cuts Medicaid. So that means, as a direct policy objective, it makes this health care less affordable for probably about 100 million people. We subsidize food and we subsidize it through the SNAP program for 42 million people.
We’ve also, in a way, subsidized it by putting very, very low tariffs on food imported from abroad. Well, the tariffs have reversed the trend. So we’re politically making food less affordable, just like we’re making health care less affordable. And the third area is energy, where again, it is [slashing] subsidies for wind, solar and other sustainable energy, which have helped reduce or keep people’s electricity bills low. Well, he ended it. This is one of the reasons why everyone’s electricity bills have gone up. So he took positive, deliberate steps to make health care, food, and electricity less affordable, not more affordable.
