Republicans shouldn’t bet the economy will save the party

Thinking about the midterm congressional elections in November must give Republicans nightmares.

A new CNN national poll gives Democratic congressional candidates an 18 percent lead in a generic head to head. President Trump’s approval rating is stuck in the 30s and history indicates that the president’s party almost always suffers heavy midterm election losses when the chief executive’s job rating is that low.

{mosads}But Wall Street stocks hit a record high last week and the economy creates jobs every month. The president and GOP strategists hope that the good economic news will allow the GOP to avoid an electoral defeat of biblical proportions in November. But Republicans shouldn’t bet the farm that the economy will save the party. The record prices on the Dow Jones don’t mean anything to the economically distressed Americans who voted for Trump in 2016.

As New York Times economics writer Louis Uchitelle put’s it, “Manufacturing in the United States has lost its way. In the process millions of Americans — I would say most Americans — had been stripped of some of their status without realizing, or only vaguely realizing, what had happened to them.”

That’s why Trump won the presidential election and why his tax reform plan might fracture his base.

We have seen and heard a lot about these Americans since the presidential election last year. White blue collar voters who lost hope along with their jobs when corporations in the industrial Midwest left for China, Mexico and parts unknown. 

Trump pledged to serve these forgotten Americans during his campaign and they rewarded the GOP presidential candidate with their votes. But he has forgotten the people he promised to remember. The only economic initiative of the Trump administration has been tax reform. The Trump tax cuts will fatten corporate treasuries but do little to help the middle class.

The new “tax reform” law championed by the president and his party will cut taxes for bankers and billionaires and fat cats and plutocrats but leave the middle-class voters who supported Trump high and dry. The big corporate tax cut has inspired Wall.Street without ending the despair on Main Street. 

The president and his party will have as much trouble selling economic recovery as Hillary Clinton did when she tried to win her campaign riding on the wave of the Obama recovery.

Recovery or not, pay raises for middle-class Americans have been microscopic. The problem now and in 2016 is that working families still struggle to make their monthly mortgage payments and afford the health insurance they need to protect their families.Taking away the health coverage they need to pay for tax cuts for people who don’t need them is not an effective way of winning the hearts and minds of middle America. 

The Gallup Economic Confidence Index indicates the shaky mindset of the American consumer. The index runs from -100 to +100. Last month, the consumer confidence was +13, just barely on the plus side. The confidence score was +10 a year ago when Trump became president, which suggests the president’s economic policies have not inspired consumers.

The public mood does not approach the euphoria on Wall Street. Consumer confidence will need to be a lot higher than that by November for the GOP to avoid political Armageddon.

The GOP is in for a rude awakening if the party expects the economy to ride to the rescue and protect it from doubts about the president’s performance and concern about collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the presidential campaign in 2016.

GOP incumbents can make their sleepless nights productive by polishing the resumes they need to get the lucrative corporate lobbying jobs they will need a year from now. Those jobs will be the only reward soon to be former Republican members of Congress will receive for voting for the president’s big corporate tax cut.