Campaign Economy
Daniel Henninger and Robert Samuelson both say the economy should be the main issue in the 2016 campaign. Here’s Henninger:
The Iowa entrance polls reveal that Mr. Trump got 44% of the vote from people who believe immigration is the top issue. Unfortunately, at least in Iowa only 13% think that.
He says 60% of Iowa voters considered “economic concerns” to be the top issue.
Trump should have little trouble reframing the immigration issue as an economic issue. He would need merely to argue more vigorously about an obvious truism understood by everyone in the bottom half of the labor pool:
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Unrestrained immigration increases the supply of labor available, AT ANY GIVEN MOMENT, for which employers compete. An increase of labor supply amounts to shifting upward the supply curve for labor, esp. for unskilled and low-skilled labor. Shifting the supply curve in this way makes wage rates go down.
If you want to block that shift, if you want to avoid having to compete with everyone else on Earth for a job in America, Vote Trump 2016.
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Trump shouldn’t have too much trouble shooting down naive, libertarian eggheads who hoot about the “lump of labor fallacy”.