I don't fault Trump much for his spending, for many reasons, but basically I think his fiscal policy was sound, his tax cuts responsible and his priorities in order. I do fault Biden for pushing outrageous spending bills. No doubt. It is easy to say spending is on congress, because the Constitution says so, but in reality, major spending is set in stone, and anything additional comes at the behest of the administration, and generally during their early legislative window. It's not that congress isn't at fault, as much as they have abdicated their duty.
As far as interest rates, Trump may have been right, but rates are the most clear driver of inflation, so if you don't want inflation, lower than Taylor Rule interest rates aren't going to be right. I think Trump did do a lot to increase American competitiveness, but most of that was in the corporate tax cutting arena, renegotiating some bad deals, and in jaw boning companies. I think the rates helped offset the damage of his tariffs, and were necessary, in a way for that, but I think eventually they were as bad as any other tariffs.
But my bottom line point is, again, spending doesn't drive inflation nearly as much as low rates. It is putting the emphasis on the wrong syllable.
Also, I don't think I have framed it unfairly to Trump. I have consistently said that I preferred his spending priorities to Bidens. Overall, for economic policy, I'd give him a B+/A-. I just think, as I said, that fiscal policy has been shown to be pretty inept in driving economic activity. Let me put it in a more traditionally conservative frame. The Obama stimulus package was basically a failure in driving recovery, right? Why? For that reason, that fiscal stimulus (spending) is weak sauce. I personally am anti pretty much all spending, but mainly because I think it creates perverse incentives as far as work, behavior, planning for the future, etc. I just don't think, in the end, it drives inflation as much as monetary policy does.
Again, i don't think I really disagree with anybody here, other than that I think if we get major inflation, it is going to be because of 20 years of loose monetary policy rather than a year of bad fiscal policy. But, as I have said above, even the link between monetary policy and inflation is not as clear as we all thought it was back in school.
