President Biden vs Trump Cabinet: A Stark Contrast
President Biden’s debate performance heightened concerns about his age. Comparing the Biden vs Trump Cabinet, But people would worry more about a Trump presidency than about Biden’s age if they compared their cabinets. The contrast between the Biden vs Trump Cabinet is stark and revealing. Biden vs Trump Cabinet consists of seasoned experts knowledgeable about economic, monetary, and foreign policy issues.
Comparing Biden vs Trump’s Potential Picks
Trump’s considering Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene as running mates, and Stephen Miller, who isn’t a lawyer, as Attorney General. They are emblematic of a future Trump cabinet: Carlson to misinform, Greene to spin conspiracy theories, and Miller to attack Trump’s opponents and critics. Imagine them and Trump in a national crisis with a Biden vs Trump Cabinet comparison in mind.
The Role of Cabinets in Handling Crises
Cabinets are supposed to help Presidents handle difficult challenges, advocate good policies, and provide wise counsel and restraint when needed. But Trump’s cabinet will be his enablers, there only to cheer him on. With no one there to reign him in, his decisions will be impulsive and often launched out of anger about unrelated issues. Unlike Biden vs Trump Cabinet scenarios where expertise is crucial.
Economic Policies: Biden vs Trump’s Approach
Start with the economy. Most economists believe trade creates jobs and raises wages and warn that Trump’s tariffs will hurt every American and U.S. industry. But he won’t have any of them on his team, and he wouldn’t listen to them evenif he did.
So now he threatens 10% tariffs on all imported goods that will increase their costs and the cost of all US products that use imported components. Tariffs will pressure US profit margins and lead to job loss, weaker wage growth, and lower consumer spending. China will replace U.S. imports with goods from other countries, and the tariffs will incentivize U.S. companies to move production offshore. Comparing Biden vs Trump Cabinet’s approach reveals significant differences.
This happened during Trump’s presidency, when he ignored multiple economists. China found new suppliers in Canada and Brazil for the soybeans it used to buy from U.S. farmers. Small businesses had to slow hiring due to soaring steel and aluminum prices. Chinese companies avoided Trump’s tariffs by shifting production to other countries. Trump’s U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement added costs to U.S.-built cars and drove production elsewhere. The Tax Foundation estimated that Trump’s tariffs would reduce US GDP by $148 billion, and cost the U.S. 459,816 jobs.
Tax Cuts and Economic Growth: Biden vs Trump
Trump now promises big tax cuts for everybody. This is a replay of 2016, when he promised his tax cuts would favor working- and middle-class Americans. But unsurprisingly, they favored the wealthy and widened income inequality.
Handling a Recession: Biden vs Trump’s Capabilities
Trump promised his tax cuts would pay for themselves by generating robust economic growth. In fact, we had to borrow between $1 trillion and $2 trillion to cover the lost tax revenues.
His last round of cuts were projected to boost after-tax incomes of the top 1 percent of earners by an average of $61,090 for the top 1% and $252,300 for the top 0.1 percent, while the bottom 20% of earners would eke out only $70. If extended to 2027, his tax cuts would actually make low- and middle-income earners worse off compared to Biden vs Trump Cabinet policies.
Trump policies would also risk a recession, and how would a Trump administration fare then? Well, in the 2008 recession, George W. Bush enlisted Fed Chair Ben Bernanke, Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson and New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner to engineer the recovery. They coordinated with many other governments and prevented the Great Recession from becoming another depression.
Who would rescue us from a depression in a Trump recession? Tucker Carlson, Majorie Taylor Greene, Steven Miller? Or maybe Larry Kudlow, Trump’s last Director of the National Economic Council, who wenton MSNBC in 2007 and assured viewers that there would be no recession? What followed was America’s greatest financial downturn since the Great Depression. The Biden vs Trump Cabinet scenario highlights the risks of having less experienced advisers during a crisis.
Healthcare Costs: Biden vs Trump’s Impact
Americans are more worried about the cost of healthcare than they are about the cost of gas, utilities, food, and housing. But Trump will drive healthcare costs up. He is on a mission to repeal Obamacare, and no one will be there to stop him. As President he made healthcare more expensive by cancelling a provision in Obamacare that lowered premiums, and made it harder to apply by halving its enrollment period. As a result, 2.3 million people including 700,000 children lost their health insurance. Millions more lost it when they lost their jobs during Covid. If Trump succeeds in overturning Obamacare, 21 million more people will lose their insurance and no one will be covered for pre-existing conditions. The Biden vs Trump Cabinet scenario highlights the risks of having less experienced advisers during a crisis.
Foreign Policy and National Security: Biden vs Trump
U.S. foreign policy is supposed to keep America safe, but Trump’s foreign policy will put us at risk. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley said that he had to take steps to prevent an “unhinged” Trump from misusing our nuclear arsenal during the last month of his presidency. But next time, there’ll be no General Milley to rein him in.
Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia (INF), which was initiated by President Ronald Reagan. The withdrawal delivered a severe blow to the arms control regime that helped preserve peace since the Cold War. The German Foreign Minister lamented that “a piece of Europe’s security has been lost.” Although Trump claimed to have gathered years of evidence that Russia violated the agreement, the treaty provision which allowed inspections for verification had ended in 2002. Defense and State Departments expressed skepticism that any material Russian violation had occurred.
Most frightening, Trump threatens to pull out of NATO and said he would “encourage” Putin to “do whatever the hell he wants” to NATO countries that don’t pay more to the alliance. Given Trump’s adoration of Putin, he’d let him win in Ukraine and give him a pass when he invades NATO members. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned, “we must push back the invader now to avoid confrontation with Russia in the future. If this lesson is ignored, Russia will attack NATO members.”
The Real Concern: Biden vs Trump Administration
President Biden’s age isn’t what Americans should worry about. The real question is what kind of administration we’ll have next year. Trump, enabled by an entourage of ideologues and sycophants, would push the country over the edge. The Biden vs Trump Cabinet scenario highlights the risks of having less experienced advisers during a crisis. The stark difference between the Biden vs Trump Cabinet approaches underscores why the upcoming election is so critical.
