Presidential candidates Donald Trump and Vice-President Kamala Harris raised many points on crucial issues for their first televised debate on 9 September 2024.
The economy
Trump said:
Look, we've had a terrible economy because inflation has — which is really known as a country buster.
Everybody knows what I'm going to do. Cut taxes very substantially.
Trump also said, with a focus on China:
“Other countries are going to finally, after 75 years, pay us back for all that we’ve done for the world. And the tariff will be substantial in some cases.”
Nevertheless, whoever is elected will inherit a strong, but slowing, economy. The Economist charted the U.S. economy showing strong job growth, manufacturing and construction advances, higher wages, infrastructure rebuilds and a diverse energy platform.
Worldwide inflation is declining as China comes out of recession and the incoming administration in 2025 will benefit from that. Nevertheless, the ongoing war in Ukraine will cause gas and grain prices to remain high.
According to The New York Times:
‘Kimberly Clausing, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics... said combining tax cuts and tariffs would increase income inequality substantially and “hurt the very voters that Trump is counting on to put him in the White House”.’
Michael R Strain, director of economic policy studies at American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank, said that while the cuts would increase economic activity, they would also “increase interest costs [on U.S. government debt] and boost inflation”.
Harris particularly focused on three policies to improve the economy, saying:
“And I intend on extending a tax cut [for those raising families] of $6,000... to give a $50,000 tax deduction to start-up small businesses... $25,000 down payment assistance for first-time home buyers.”
To achieve these goals, Harris intends to increase capital gains and corporate taxes. This will not be popular with large companies and may force them to raise prices. According to the Committee for a Responsible Budget, Harris’s proposal would increase the federal deficit by $1.7 trillion over the next decade, if permanently entrenched. However, Harris promised they would only apply for the first four years of her presidency.
Immigration
Trump went to immigration several times in the debate, at one point saying:
They’ve had three and a half years to fix the border.
And let her sign a bill to close up the border. Because they have the right to do it. They don't need bills.
Harris said:
And let me say that the United States Congress, including some of the most conservative members of the United States Senate, came up with a border security bill, which I supported.
But you know what happened to that bill? Donald Trump got on the phone, called up some folks in Congress and said kill the bill.
Immigration at the southern border has increased exponentially as people flee corruption and climate change. Poor agricultural farmers suffer the most. Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Haiti, Nicaragua and Peru employ more than a quarter of their labour force in the agricultural sector.
After the bipartisan bill to manage immigration at the southern border was rejected by the U.S. House of Representatives, President Biden enacted an executive order on immigration, based on the bill.
Kamala Harris wishes to sustain that order and seek to reshape the bipartisan bill.
Trump repeatedly conflated immigrants and crime by stating:
They allowed terrorists. They allowed common street criminals... to come in...
Crime here is up and through the roof.
And we have a new form of crime. It's called migrant crime.
Yet, the vast majority of immigrants do not commit serious crimes, according to the available statistics. In fact, all crimes involving immigrants are below the national average.
According to the Cato Institute:
‘The illegal immigrant homicide conviction rate is 15% below the native‐born rate...’
Also, according to Cato:
‘In 2018, the illegal immigrant criminal conviction rate was 782 per 100,000 illegal immigrants, 535 per 100,000 legal immigrants, and 1,422 per 100,000 native‐born Americans. The illegal immigrant criminal conviction rate was 45% below that of native‐born Americans in Texas.’
Furthermore, the mass deportation of immigrants could have a devastating effect on the American economy. It is estimated 14% of oil workers in the Permian oil basin in Texas are immigrants.
According to a study by the University of New Hampshire:
‘Unauthorised immigrants make up a particularly large share of workers in several industries, accounting for 22% of all farmworkers, 15% of construction workers and 8% of manufacturing workers (which includes food production such as meatpacking). Seventy-nine per cent of unauthorised immigrants have been in the country over ten years.’
The U.S. economy would severely contract if it lost the contributions of these workers.
Energy and the environment
Interestingly, both candidates hardly commented on climate change.
Trump said:
“We'll go back to windmills and we'll go back to solar, where they need a whole desert to get some energy to come out. You ever see a solar plant? By the way, I'm a big fan of solar, but they take 400, 500 acres of desert soil...”
Harris said:
“He will talk about [how] windmills cause cancer.”
Instead, they both focused on oil production.
Harris said:
“I will not ban fracking. I have not banned fracking as Vice President of the United States. And, in fact, I was the tie-breaking vote on the Inflation Reduction Act, which opened new leases for fracking. My position is that we have got to invest in diverse sources of energy so we reduce our reliance on foreign oil.”
Trump said:
“You believe in things like, we’re not going to frack. We’re not going to take fossil fuel. We’re not going to do things that are going to make this country strong...”
However, the U.S. is drilling more oil under the Biden/Harris Administration than ever before, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). This includes fracking, a process that adds costs to conventional oil extraction.
Nevertheless, U.S. oil production growth is slowing now, but not because of anything to do with government policy. The slowdown has been driven by crude prices declining while oilfield services costs have remained resilient following strong increases in 2022-23. More production will not lower prices and the competition from renewable energy will not disappear.
Most American states now get 17% of their energy from renewables. Fourteen states get 30% of their energy from renewables. According to Forbes, employment in the clean energy sector grew by 142,000 jobs in 2023, twice the national rate of all new jobs.
Abortion
Thousands of Republican women get abortions every year. Yet, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, which protected the right to abortion, 14 Republican states invoked six-week term limits (many women do not know they are pregnant at six weeks). This affects 21.5 million American women aged 15 to 49 who live in these states.
In the debate, Trump said:
Now, I believe in the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother.
And now states are voting on it.
Trump wants individual states to decide their own abortion laws. On the other hand, he can see that the six-week ban is unpopular and said he would vote against the amendment enshrining the ban that exists in his own state of Florida. Nevertheless, if elected, he will maintain his laissez-faire attitude. Six other states are considering a ban or severe restrictions.
An attempt by the Biden/Harris Administration to pass the Women’s Health Protection Act stalled in the Senate.
Biden issued a rule in April 2024 aimed at strengthening privacy protections for women seeking abortions that bans the disclosure of protected health information related to reproductive health.
In the debate, Haris said:
“And I pledge to you when Congress passes a bill to put back in place the protections of Roe v Wade as president of the United States, I will proudly sign it into law.”
International
Both candidates never seriously articulated how they would solve the terrible Israeli-Gaza or Ukraine conflicts. Both resorted to name-dropping and hearsay. Both described each other as “weak”.
Trump said:
“Look at what's going on in the Middle East. This would have never happened. I will get that settled and fast. And I'll get the war with Ukraine and Russia ended. If I'm President-Elect, I'll get it done before even becoming president.”
Harris said:
“And understand what that would mean. Because Putin's agenda is not just about Ukraine. Understand why the European allies and our NATO allies are so thankful that you are no longer president and that we understand the importance of the greatest military alliance the world has ever known, which is NATO. And what we have done to preserve the ability of Zelenskyy and the Ukrainians to fight for their Independence.”
Harris also said Putin would “eat you for lunch”. Mercifully Trump never reacted to this Hannibal Lecter jibe.
Both candidates will make numerous campaign promises before election day. Not all these promises will materialise if they are elected, because of a variety of factors — mainly because both are highly likely to preside over a closely divided Senate and House of Representatives.
It is difficult to determine what economic or social changes Trump would make by his words alone if he is elected president. He is constantly looking for clickbait phrases to appeal to voters. He is a master manipulator of social media and television. Harris is an experienced politician, who has been criticised by her opposition for dramatically changing her views on policy issues.
The American public will ultimately decide which policies they want and who they believe.
Patrick Drennan is a journalist based in New Zealand, with a degree in American history and economics.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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