This article originally appeared in the New York Post on September 10, 2020.
On the campaign trail this week, Joe Biden pressed on with his efforts to blame President Trump for our economic challenges and simultaneously to cast doubt on the job market’s stunning recovery. Neither attempt stands up to scrutiny.
In Michigan Wednesday, Biden claimed that “Trump’s negligence” had created the recession. This is demagoguery. Remember: A virus from China caused worldwide economic shutdowns and sent economies into a tailspin.
Worried that the cure could be worse than the disease, Trump declined to order a national shutdown. Instead, the White House Coronavirus Task Force issued voluntary, two-week guidelines designed to slow the spread and keep the vulnerable safe. Trump later extended those guidelines to six weeks and added further recommendations “essential for containing the virus.” It was good advice, but nowhere did the guidelines order that businesses shut down.
It was governors in 44 states, 20 GOPers and 24 Democrats, who shut down their economies to varying degrees, the most bipartisan state action in modern times.
We can debate the health effectiveness of the shutdowns. But the economic results were foreseeable. Everyone knew that jobs, growth and wages would decline significantly from their pre-pandemic historic highs under Trump.
Biden now wants to blame Trump for these foreseeable consequences. The strange thing is that Biden does so even as he also vows to be open to imposing a national shutdown if elected. No doubt, he would attempt to blame Trump for the more dire consequences of that shutdown, as well.
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