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Catherine Rampell Profile picture
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15 Oct, 4 tweets, 3 min read
JFC. No, China isn't going to pay for U.S. fiscal stimulus, just as Mexico isn't paying for the wall. Do any voters still fall for this?
If Trump argues China will "pay" via tariffs, note that at least *four* studies have found that Trump's tariffs so far have been either entirely or almost entirely paid by Americans nber.org/papers/w26610
hbs.edu/faculty/Public…
nber.org/papers/w25638
bfi.uchicago.edu/wp-content/upl…
Maybe Trump means China will instead "pay" for our stimulus by continuing to lend the U.S. government money at near-zero interest rates...if so, he may want to look at recent trends in U.S. Treasury holdings, as well as recent rhetoric out of Beijing reuters.com/article/us-chi…
I realize I'm breaking one of my own media resolutions ("Don’t spend more time analyzing an idea that the president proposes than he spent coming up with it"). But I can just see this becoming a new idiotic slogan heading into the election washingtonpost.com/opinions/four-…

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More from @crampell

Catherine Rampell Profile picture
15 Oct
College enrollment fell this fall, with freshman enrollment down 16.1% across the board. At community colleges, first-time enrollment fell 22.7%.
Only for-profit freshman enrollment went up, 3.7% nscresearchcenter.org/stay-informed/
Usually you'd expect college enrollment increases in a recession, as workers seek shelter from the bad economy and upgrade their skills. But this is of course a different kind of recession. Presumably a lot of students are waiting for in-person classes to return.
Bigger declines among Whites, and also among men. Note that women already outnumbered men at colleges, so enrollment changes this year will skew the gender balance further.
Read 6 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
8 Oct
Man steals pro-Biden yard sign, then goes around town stealing copies of local newspaper containing story on his theft of the pro-Biden yard sign.
Local newspaper then publishes new story, on theft of the story on the theft. dickinsoncountynews.com/story/2839758.…
Both stories are, and remain, online #supportlocaljournalism
dickinsoncountynews.com/story/2832228.…
dickinsoncountynews.com/story/2839758.…
Not the first time someone has stolen print copies of a local newspaper to suppress a story they disliked.
tampabay.com/florida-politi…
Read 6 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
6 Oct
Trump is currently on track to become the first president since modern economic statistics began to leave office with fewer jobs than he inherited
washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump…
The purported greatness of the economy would certainly be news to the 27m people filing for unemployment, or the 1 in 10 adults in households where there was either sometimes or often not enough to eat in the last 7 days
Boasting about stock markets is also silly, and not only because half of Americans don't own stocks. Presidents don't control markets. Even if they *did,* Trump would compare poorly to his predecessor
Read 7 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
27 Sep
NYT: Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his 1st year in White House, he paid another $750.
He paid no income taxes at all in 10 of previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made nytimes.com/interactive/20…
His returns “reveal the hollowness, but also wizardry, behind self-made-billionaire image...that helped propel him to White House & that still undergirds loyalty of many in his base. Ultimately, Trump has been more successful playing a business mogul than being one in real life”
His tax returns show how misleading his public financial disclosures — where he has reported gross revenues, not profits — have been. In 2018, Trump said in his public disclosure filings that he had made at least $434.9 million. The tax records show $47.4 million in losses.
Read 9 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
20 Sep
Senior officials in Trump's White House, including the ones actively dismantling the refugee system, are themselves descended from refugees.
E.g., read @jeanguerre's new book on Stephen Miller, which details his refugee lineage on both sides of his family amazon.com/Hatemonger-Ste…
Or listen to this Trump Inc about Kushner's grandparents, who were Holocaust refugees; and who (understandably) lied on their visa application in order to seek refuge in the US. Grandmother: “For the Jews, the doors were closed. We never understood that” propublica.org/article/trump-…
Read 4 tweets
Catherine Rampell Profile picture
18 Sep
Trump & his political appointees worked to discredit the National Weather Service, during a hurricane;
the Federal Reserve, during a recession;
USDA's Economic Research Service, during a farming crisis;
so, sure, why not also the CDC during a pandemic?
nytimes.com/2020/09/18/us/…
On the one hand, in the past, when Trump needlessly frittered away statistical/scientific agencies' hard-won reputations, I used to wonder: Won't he regret this eventually? At some point *something* bad will happen and he'll need the public to believe what these experts say
As @Austan_Goolsbee has put it (adapting some wisdom from the late Paul Volcker): Normal times are when you establish the credibility by being honest even if it makes you look bad in the short run, because you will need it when SHTF.
Read 6 tweets

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