Republicans also denounced and ridiculed the Obama administration’s efforts at fiscal stimulus, which included payroll tax cuts intended to raise workers’ incomes and lead to higher spending. Trump’s 2017 tax cut basically bypassed ordinary workers, giving big tax breaks to corporations instead, on the theory that these tax cuts would trickle down to the middle class. Now the Trump administration is basically admitting that trickle-down isn’t working and that Obama-style stimulus is actually the right way to go.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think any of these desperate measures is likely to happen anytime soon. The Fed is in no mood to be bullied by a president it believes has damaged the economy with his trade war. And while Democrats might support a clean payroll tax cut that really went to workers, my guess is that Republicans won’t be able to resist the temptation to lard their proposals up with more goodies for the rich.
And maybe none of it will be needed. We don’t actually know that a recession is coming. But if it does come, we know how the administration will respond: with blind panic.