As America’s crucial presidential election approaches, the campaign has reached a crescendo, with Donald Trump and his cronies issuing increasingly radical promises about what they would do with power. But such promises, for example regarding fiscal policy, will inevitably be broken. After all, it is mathematically impossible to cut taxes on corporations and billionaires, prop up basic programs like defense and Social Security, and simultaneously reduce the deficit.

Some of the Trump campaign’s more absurd promises come from Elon Musk, who claims he knows how to cut $2 trillion from the federal budget. That’s pretty rich coming from someone whose companies are so dependent on government contracts and bailouts (without the $465 million loan they received from the Obama administration, Tesla could have been very disappointed) .

Musk’s claims betray a stunning ignorance of both economics and politics. His proposals amount to a cut of about a third of all government spending – eight times more than what the General Accountability Office (the government’s internal watchdog) estimates constitutes waste or fraud.

Among other things, the US should cut all “discretionary” spending, including defense, health, education, and the Treasury and Commerce Departments, as well as cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and other well-established, highly popular programs.

While America’s economic strength rests on the foundations of science and technology, Trump has repeatedly proposed massive cuts to federal research spending that would be devastating to advances in basic science and have knock-on effects in many key economic sectors.

Such wild cuts imply that Trump would try to persuade Congress to make major changes to these programs. But don’t hold your breath. Trump already had four years to dismantle the “administrative state” when he was president and it didn’t work. Now he’s making populist promises that would add (not subtract) to the deficit — more than $7.5 trillion over the next decade.

Such drastic cuts would have devastating effects on the US economy and society. Slash and burn policies inevitably fail. Just as US Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon’s belt-tightening strategy under Herbert Hoover contributed to the Great Depression, the UK’s austerity policies under 14 years of Tory rule led to a decade and a half of stagnation.

The contrast between the economic programs of Trump and Kamala Harris could not be starker. Harris’ agenda would lower the cost of living — relying on provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to lower drug and energy costs — and make housing more affordable, while Trump’s tariffs (a tax on imported goods) would it makes everything more expensive for Americans, especially middle- and low-income households.

In almost every area where the country faces a challenge, Trump’s policies would make things worse. Even before the pandemic, US life expectancy – already the lowest among advanced economies – was falling under Trump. By aiming to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the IRA provision that lowers prescription drug prices, Trump would make the situation even worse.

Equally, America tops the list of advanced economies in terms of inequality, and Trump’s tax cuts for the wealthy would further widen the gap. Harris’s policies, by contrast, would be directly aimed at improving the living standards of the middle class.

In addition to health crises and inequality, climate change is costing Americans dearly in lives and property damage.

However, Trump wooed fossil fuel tycoons for campaign contributions, promising to reduce pollution regulations in return. Not only would it leave America behind many other countries in the transition to a clean energy economy; it would make the US an international pariah (again).

These are among the many reasons why 23 American Nobel Prize-winning economists recently signed an open letter endorsing Harris. It’s difficult to get two economists to agree on much, but we concluded that “overall, Harris’ economic agenda will improve our nation’s health, investment, sustainability, resilience, job opportunities, and fairness, and will far superior to the counterproductive economic agenda. to Donald Trump”.

Pocket money matters in this election, and we Nobel Economists have concluded that, without a doubt, “Kamala Harris would make a much better steward of our economy.”

Many Americans want to forget all the chaos (and excess deaths from Covid-19) that have prevailed during Trump’s presidency. But you don’t have to. With Trump openly seeking revenge against what he calls “enemies within” and the Republican Party reduced to nothing more than a personality cult, there is little doubt that a second presidency would be even worse than the first.

While America’s economic strength rests on the foundations of science and technology, Trump has repeatedly proposed massive cuts to federal research spending that would be devastating to advances in basic science and have knock-on effects in many key economic sectors. When he was in office, even Republicans understood the folly of his proposals in this area and voted against them. But now the party’s abject servility towards him is total.

In another open letter, my fellow Nobel laureate economists and I were joined by Nobel laureate scientists (more than 80 in all). Together, we emphasize that “The enormous increases in living standards and life expectancy over the past two centuries are largely the result of advances in science and technology.

Kamala Harris recognizes this and understands that maintaining America’s leadership in these areas requires budgetary support from the federal government, independent universities, and international collaboration. Harris also recognizes the key role that immigrants have always played in the advancement of science.”

Unfortunately, not even Musk—whose companies depend on the basic science done by others—has fully considered what Trump would mean for his bottom line. Short-term greed — a fixation on tax cuts and easier regulation — drew many captains of industry and finance to join Team Trump.

Trump offers rentier capitalism, a kind of capitalism that, while it will be good for Musk and other billionaires, will not be good for the rest of us. But Harris, at least, projects hope that through reasoning and cooperation, Americans can create a more resilient, inclusive, and faster-growing economy — one that transcends crony capitalism and shares the benefits of growth more equitably.

Joseph E Stiglitz, Nobel laureate in economics and professor at Columbia University, is a former chief economist of the World Bank, chairman of the US President’s Council of Economic Advisers and co-chairman of the High Level Commission on Carbon Pricing.

Disclaimer: This article first appeared on Project Syndicate and is published by special permission of the syndicate.