RNC: Don’t Believe Your Own Wallets, Believe What We Tell You
The Republican National Convention is attempting to reframe history (and the present). In 20 of the past 21 weeks, new unemployment claims have topped one million. Nearly 30 million Americans are receiving unemployment insurance benefits and millions more are involuntarily working part-time or have dropped out of the workforce. Up to one in three people couldn’t pay their August rent on time, yet RNC speakers claim the president’s policies have created the best economy we have ever seen.
Trump inherited what became the longest economic expansion in history. Today, the only indicator that looks good is the stock market. Sure, Mark Zuckerberg is now a centibillionaire, Jeff Bezos has riches beyond our imagination, Apple is now valued at more than $2 trillion and a mere 12 people have a combined net worth of more than $1,000,000,000,000 (that’s a trillion!). But the fact that 12.1 percent of adults (21 percent for Black and brown households) aren’t sure if they can feed their children is a more meaningful measure of how Trump’s economy is delivering.
Today, the only indicator that looks good is the stock market… But the fact that 12.1 percent of adults (21 percent for Black and brown households) aren’t sure if they can feed their children is a more meaningful measure of how Trump’s economy is delivering.
The COVID-19-induced economic crisis exacerbated the harsh reality: Economic inequality has been widening for four decades, household income has barely budged and four in 10 people don’t have $400 to cover an emergency. The economy just doesn’t work for many of us, and it’s gotten worse under this administration. The White House has no plans to make things better. Its signature achievement, the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, redistributed wealth to the already rich and gave a windfall to corporations. A Trump second term would mean more upward redistribution alongside a fake embrace of regular people. Already, for example, the White House is using the economically devastating pandemic to call for capital gains tax cuts and, kid you not, business meals tax deductions.
Further, because the White House bungled the health response to COVID, most children can’t go back to school and the economy has fewer jobs. Using a convention to spin the staggering hardship that millions of families are now experiencing does not pay the rent or put food on the table.
