DE PERE — Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance headlined the economy during a Wisconsin campaign stop on Wednesday in an AmeriLux distribution center warehouse.
Vance’s economic narrative, weaving in everything from energy to immigration to taxes, explicitly contrasted Vice President Kamala Harris’ time in the Biden administration with the Trump-Vance economic platform, much of it a continuation of the policies enacted during former President Donald Trump’s time in office.
It was the same strategy that U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren took Tuesday when she laid out the Democratic economic agenda for the Harris-Walz ticket just 20 minutes north at the Green Bay Labor Temple the previous day.
The one-two punch of visits to the area from two political heavyweights offered Green Bay area residents a stark side-by-side comparison of the Republican and Democratic economic plans in their own backyard.
“Let’s do a policy contrast,” Vance said. “Donald Trump for every American citizen, rich or poor. I come from a poor family that suffers when people like Kamala Harris don’t do their jobs.”
Here are the takeaways from Vance’s visit, and a side-by-side comparison of the Harris and Trump campaigns’ economic agendas — and their effects on Americans — using the Wharton Business School’s analysis of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ and Donald Trump’s economic agendas published on Monday.
The interest of the ‘little guy’
Vance’s starkest contrast between Harris and Trump was who had the common American’s best interests in mind.
“When [Harris] says that she’s the candidate of the little guy, the little guy can’t afford to heat their homes because of Kamala Harris’ policies,” Vance said. “The little guy can’t afford to put groceries on the table because of Kamala Harris’ policies, and the little guy can’t afford to buy a home because of Kamala Harris’ policies.”
The average Green Bay resident makes $3.57 less per hour than the average American, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Trump announced in June that he would support legislation that does not tax the tips service workers. Harris followed suit in August.
A second Trump presidency would aim to extend the 2017 tax cuts indefinitely, lower corporate tax rates to 15%, and eliminate taxes on Social Security benefits.
The Harris campaign’s 4½-page economic agenda announced on Aug. 16 pledged to a slew of tax credits including a $6,000 child tax credit for the first year of a child’s life.
Wharton Business School calculated the impact of both Harris’ and Trump’s tax plans. The federal deficit would increase by $2 trillion over 10 years with Harris’ policies. Under Trump’s policies, it would increase by $4.1 trillion by the same measure.
The most significant impact on workers would be on their incomes, with a wide disparity between those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder and the top.
Harris’ economic policies would drastically increase wages for the the bottom 20% of Americans while slightly reducing incomes for the top 99%, according to Wharton’s model. All income brackets would see modest increases to their paychecks under Trump’s policies, though a 1.6% pay increase for the top 0.1% of Americans is a much larger dollar amount than the 6.4% increase for the bottom 20% of Americans.
Vance worked with Warren on cutting bank executive compensation in 2023 under the aegis of promoting the interest of the American working class. He opposed a corporate tax cut as recently as July of this year. But the Trump campaign’s tax policy includes reducing the corporate tax rate to 15%.
‘Made in America’ to reduce inflation
Vance slammed the Biden administration, and Harris directly, for increasing the price of energy, equating the rise in the price of gas for truckers with a rise in the cost of everything else for Americans.
“Stop buying energy from tin pot dictators,” said Vance. “Let’s buy American energy from American workers.”
The United States has been on a steady decline in the import of petroleum products, natural gas, and coal from the rest of the world since 2005, according to the Energy Information Administration. It has exported more energy to the rest of the world than any point since 1950. America has produced more energy than it consumes since 2019.
Inflation in the Green Bay area has remained consistently lower than the national average, which dipped below 3% for the first time since March 2021. Energy costs in the Green Bay area dropped by 0.1% in June 2024.
But American protectionism, on both the economy and immigration — that Vance directly linked to the economy — was on full display on Wednesday in the warehouse of plywood and plastics.
“Trump has a message for the 25 million illegal aliens,” Vance said. “Pack your bags, you’re going home in six months. They’re undercutting American workers.”
Unemployment in the Green Bay area hovers around 0.5%, well under the national average, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
There were 11 million undocumented immigrants living in America as of 2022, according to Pew Research Center. The think tank also found that most Americans believe undocumented immigrants take the jobs most Americans don’t want.
Trump would double down on tariffs in his second administration, as highlighted in Vance’s many references to “Chinese-made electric vehicles,” recently calling for 20% tariffs on imports instead of the 10% he initially proposed.
Protesters outside the rally
Protesters showed up outside AmeriLux before the rally, holding signs that criticized Project 2025, called for “reproductive freedom for all” and urged women to “unite against the right.”
The Vance crowd left the warehouse cheering after his motorcade, then dispersed into the AmeriLux parking lots, excusing themselves for bumping into each other and calling out “Have a good one!”
They didn’t see the protesters from the Wisconsin Working Families Party and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) who put on a repeat of their agitation outside Vance’s visit to Milwaukee on Aug. 16 and had long dispersed, except one.
A woman stood in red with a white bonnet ringing a bell, a not-so-subtle reference “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a fictional dystopian story premised on the sexual slavery of women in a fictional America. The American flag slung over her shoulder grazed the ground.
“Get that flag off the ground,” yelled an attendee, and a chorus erupted calling the woman an embarrassment.
Jesse Lin is a reporter covering the community of Green Bay and its surroundings, as well as politics in northeastern Wisconsin. Contact him at 920-431-8247 or [email protected].
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Publish date : 2024-08-28 15:57:00
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