Trump’s dangerous economic experiment

This essay is a part of The Right Way Forward, Restoring America’s new think tank debate series in which leading conservative institutions argue the defining questions of the post-Trump era. Read about the series here.

President Donald Trump is conducting a dangerous economic policy experiment that flies in the face of erstwhile Republican Party economic policy orthodoxy. Not only is he discarding budget policy responsibility and sound money as the core guiding principles of macroeconomic policy management, but he is also turning his back on free trade and engaging in industrial policy rather than allowing market forces to choose economic winners. The degree to which he is deviating from economic policy orthodoxy will all too likely end in tears.

Start with budget policy. There can be no doubt that Trump inherited from Joe Biden unsustainable public finances due to the former president’s public spending largesse. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget