The GOP is hammering Democrats on the economy, but they're also not doing anything to help

US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) listens as House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy speaks to the press, following their meeting with US President Joe Biden and Democratic congressional leaders at the White House on May 12, 2021.

NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images

• Republicans are polling ahead of Democrats as midterms near, especially on economic issues. 
• The GOP has been arguing on the campaign trail that with Congressional control, they'll curb inflation. 
• Economists told The New York Times it's "unlikely" Republicans will be able to do that. 

As midterms approach, Republicans are hammering home the message that rising prices are being driven by Democrats.

"Americans are fed up with paying the price for one-party Democrat rule in Washington," House Budget Republican Leader Jason Smith said in a press release this month. "In two years, Democrats have added $10 trillion in new spending and left taxpayers holding the bag."

It's a message that seems to be resonating with voters.

Polling shows that it's very possible House Republicans win back the majority on November 8 with more than 20 House seats, once the upper range of most analysts' projections, Axios reported last week. In one NBC News poll from last month, voters favored Republicans by nearly 20% on the issue of the economy.

So far, the GOP's proposals for if they retake one or both chambers of Congress include preserving Trump-era tax cuts for the wealthy, and paring back spending on programs like Social Security and Medicare. Keeping those tax cuts in place, and slashing tax proposals even more, could stimulate more spending on already-scarce goods — what's led to current skyrocketing inflation. 

"It is unlikely that any of the policies proposed by Republicans would meaningfully reduce inflation in 2023, when rapidly rising prices will still be a major problem for the economy and for consumers," Michael R. Strain, an economist at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told the New York Times.

At the same time, Republicans are alluding to using upcoming debt ceiling negotiations to force cuts to Social Security and Medicare, two vital programs for America's elderly and workers with disabilities. President Joe Biden has vowed to keep those programs intact, saying that Republicans want to inflict economic chaos.

"In order to cut Social Security and Medicare, they're threatening to default on the federal debt," Biden said in remarks at the DNC. "There's nothing — nothing — that would create more chaos, more inflation, and more damage to the American economy than this."

Other members of his party are criticizing Republican messaging on the economy as well. 

"It bothers me, bothers me very much that Republicans in poll after poll are actually leading in terms of how people feel each party will respond to the economy, when in fact the Republicans have nothing to say for working families on the economy," Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders told Vanity Fair. 

On the campaign trail, many Republican candidates have effectively criticized Biden and Congressional Democrats for expansive spending through legislation such as the American Rescue Plan, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package signed into law by Biden early last year. 

"Every single thing they do is wrong," Ted Cruz said of the Biden administration while campaigning for congressional hopeful Andy Ogles at a Nashville rally this week. He went on to criticize Democrats for the money they put into COVID relief, infrastructure, and healthcare over the last year and a half. 

Republicans' own policies could potentially add $90 billion to the federal deficit by next year, according to estimates by economists in the Biden administration for the Times. That deficit increase would be due to rolling back a new minimum tax on big businesses, part of the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, and preserving Trump-era tax cuts.

"The amount of cuts you'd have to do to move the needle on inflation are completely off the table," Jon Lieber, the managing director of Eurasia Group and a former aide to Senator Mitch McConnell, told the Times.

That's a message that the Biden administration is seizing onto in the lead-up to the midterm elections.

"Congressional Republicans have laid out their mega MAGA trickle-down economic plan clearly," the White House said in a Thursday statement. "Their economic plan will raise costs and make inflation worse."

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