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By Jared Bernstein By Jared Bernstein July 24 at 6:00 AM

Jared Bernstein, a former chief economist to Vice President Biden, is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and author of the new book 'The Reconnection Agenda: Reuniting Growth and Prosperity.'

Last week, four A-list Republican economists published a validator document to support the contention that economic plans by the Trump administration and congressional Republicans will boost the real GDP growth rate from 2 percent to 3 percent.

This is the sort of piece you get when policymakers, having put forth a plan that they say will accomplish something, ask their allies on the outside to publish a document validating their claim (I dont know if thats the origin of this particular piece). Such documents do not necessarily argue that 2 + 2 = 5; validators can be honest or phony, and an honest validation doc can be a useful tool, one that helps the media, for example, to assess the credibility of the underlying claim.

For reasons Ill share in a moment, the piece is unconvincing. But when Steve Liesman and I discussed it on CNBC the other day, he posed an interesting challenge. Steve granted my rap about why these guys are wrong. But whats wrong with trying? he asked. Shouldnt Democrats also be for faster growth (assume for the purposes of this discussion that such growth is environmentally sustainable)?

Its a fair question.

The fundamental problem with the study is its lack of evidence to back up the authors claims. As regards the administrations vague agenda to boost the growth rate by half, the authors merely assert (my italics): We believe it can. We judge that such a policy package, in part by encouraging firms to expand by bringing new investment to production, can help raise trend labor productivity growth to around 2.3 percent per year in the non-farm business economy and perhaps higher

The piece offers no evidence to support such beliefs or judgments. They instead assert that high marginal tax rates, especially those on capital formation and business enterprises, costly new labor market and other regulations, high debt-financed government spending (largely to fund income transfer payments), and the lack of a clear monetary strategy have discouraged real business investment and reduced both the supply of and the demand for labor.

But theres no such simple, empirical relationship between high marginal rates and investment, productivity, or GDP growth, either over time in the United States or across countries (see scatterplots here and on page 256here). President Bill Clinton raised high-end tax rates in the 1990s and productivity boomed later in the decade (2.5 percent per year, 1995 to 2000); President George W. Bush lowered top rates and, a few years later, productivity growth started to slow. To be clear, Im not saying that higher taxes boost growth. Instead, Im strongly warning you to reject simplistic claims either way.

That lack of a clear monetary strategy bit is a swipe at the Fed, again offered without evidence. In fact, as I show in this recent testimony, the Feds aggressive response to the Great Recession was effective in lowering key interest rates in the economy and thereby helping to pull the recovery forward.

A more credible attempt at calibrating the growth effects from the Trump budget comes from the recent Congressional Budget Office evaluation. As opposed to more than tripling the rate of productivity growth, the budget office finds that (my bold) average growth in inflation-adjusted GDP over the 20182027 period would be about 0.1 percentage point higher under the presidents proposals than under CBOs baseline.And they get that small increment to growth only by accepting team Trumps promise that theyll offset their tax cuts with increases to be named later (the old magic asterisk approach).

But heres where Liesmans challenge comes in. Democrats should not take the above to imply that better policies cant lead to at least somewhat faster growth, and most important, growth that reaches the poor and the middle class.

Its tempting for progressives to conclude that if Trump is pushing it, we must push against it. But being against Trump doesnt mean were against growth. To the contrary, Democrats need their own growth agenda, one thats evidence-based and inclusive. The rap on Democrats is that they care only about redistribution, never about growth. Thats demonstrably false, and progressives shouldnt let ourselves be painted into that corner.

(We could, for the record, point out that growth has, in fact, done better under Democrats, but sorry, I just dont think theres much of a substantive argument there.)

So, whats a pro-growth Democratic agenda? Funny you should ask, because congressional Democrats are rolling out their Better Deal agenda this week. As I understand it, its a plan to increase jobs and pay, reduce the cost of some of the more expensive parts of the lives of moderate-income families (e.g., prescription drugs, higher ed, child care), and to help workers whove been stuck on the job-market sidelines by boosting apprenticeships (earn while you learn), and incentivizing companies to train and then hire workers whose skills need an upgrade.

Im not here to write a validator paper on their agenda, although Ill let you know what I think as I learn more about it. I can tell you that these measures have a much better chance of reaching those who need an economic boost than trickle-down tax cuts. In terms of growth, improved quality of the labor force is an input into faster productivity growth; family-friendly labor policies have been shown to significantly boost labor supply, especially of working moms.

Whats more, such ideas exist at that rarefied intersection of good politics and good policy. Republicans claim to be at that intersection, but as the health-care debate revealed, theyre way on the other side of town. That leaves a vacancy the other side needs to fill.

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The Republicans' growth plan doesn't add up. That's an opening for Democrats. - Washington Post

President Donald Trump delivers remarks on health care during a lunch with members of Congress in the State Dining Room of the White House on Wednesday.

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President Donald Trump didnt end his weekend on a cheerful note. In an unusual pair of Sunday afternoon tweets, the president hit out at Republican lawmakers, saying some who owe their positions to his candidacys coattails are leaving him on his own. As the phony Russian Witch Hunt continues, two groups are laughing at this excuse for a lost election taking hold, Democrats and Russians! Trump wrote shortly after 4 p.m.

Six minutes later, the commander in chief followed up with another tweet: It's very sad that Republicans, even some that were carried over the line on my back, do very little to protect their President.

Trump wrote his two tweets about an hour after he returned to the White House from the Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. Its unclear exactly what got the president so worked up on Sunday afternoon, but his pair of tweets came shortly after his new press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said Trump would sign a bill that severely curtails his ability to lift Russian sanctions unilaterally. Earlier in the day, Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications chief, said the president still had not made up his mind about whether Russia attempted to interfere in last years presidential election.

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Trump Angrily Lashes Out at Republicans for Failing to Protect Their President - Slate Magazine (blog)

A 2015 rally marked the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March. (Photo: Evan Vucci/AP)

WASHINGTON Republican attitudes toward African-Americans hardened significantly in 2016, according to an authoritative new study.

Only 32 percent of self-identified Republicans in 2016 said they believe that African-Americans face a lot of discrimination. That was a significant drop from just a year earlier, when the Public Religion Research Institute asked the same question. In that survey, 46 percent of Republicans respondedthat blacks experience significant discrimination.

In fact, more than half of Republicans told PRRI in 2016 that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities. Among Democrats, 69 percent disagreed with this statement, and 59 percent of independents disagreed.

The 2016 study surveyed 40,509 people by phone in the second half of the year, starting in mid-May, just after Donald Trump had effectively clinched the GOP nomination.

About three-quarters of self-identifiedRepublicans are white Americans who identify as Christian, said PRRI CEO Robert P. Jones.

Attitudes among voters of other political persuasions stayed fairly steady on the question of discrimination against African-Americans during this period. Among independents, 58 percent said in 2016 that blacks are discriminated against, a drop of just 1 point. And 77 percent of Democrats answered affirmatively in 2016, down just 3points from a year earlier.

When PRRI first asked the question in its 2015 study, public awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement was still growing. Since then, there have been a number of other well-publicized cases of blacks killed by police under questionable circumstances.

Jones noted that Trumps campaign in 2016 included a very hard pushback to Black Lives Matter that began to be seen as the Republican response.

Trump called the group a threat and said thata lot of people feel that it is inherently racist.

Its a very divisive term, because all lives matter. Its a very, very divisive term, Trump said.

The phrase blue lives matter, intended to signal support for the police, became a rallying cry at the Republican Convention in Cleveland last year, after eight police officers were shot and killed in separate incidents in Dallas and Baton Rouge.

But in the weeks leading up to the convention, Trump also condemned the fatal shooting of two black men by police officers: Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., on July 5 and Philando Castile in St. Paul, Minn., the next day.

Related slideshow: Outrage over officer acquittal in Philando Castiles death >>>

Protesters carry a banner depicting Philando Castile on June 16 in St Paul, Minn. (Photo: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

The officer who shot Castile during a traffic stop was acquitted of all charges earlier this month.

I thought they were horrible, horrible to witness, Trump said at the time. Whether thats a lack of training or whatever, but I thought they were two incidents that were absolutely horrible to witness. At the same time, our country is losing its spirit. African-Americans are absolutely losing their spirit.

Sterling and Castile are just two of the many black men and women who have died from police shootings or in custody, often in incidents that have been captured on video and released to the public. The list from 2014 to 2016 includes Michael Brown, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Joseph Mann, Paul ONeal, Terence Crutcher, Keith Lamont Scott and several others.

Jones said the different partisan and racial attitudes about discrimination mirror long-standing trends in American life. He also believes thatthe significant change in Republican attitudes between 2015 and 2016 indicated that the presidential campaign and the amount of attention and discussion it focused on the topic had a substantial impact.

Presidential campaigns are fairly influential in terms of what they signal to people what they highlight and dont highlight, Jones said. They send cues to people.

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In just a year, Republicans became far more skeptical of ...

Six months after seizing complete control of the federal government, the Republican Party stands divided as ever plunged into a messy war among its factions that has escalated in recent weeks to crisis levels.

Frustrated lawmakers are increasingly sounding off at a White House awash in turmoil and struggling to accomplish its legislative agenda. President Donald Trump is scolding Republican senators over health care and even threatening electoral retribution. Congressional leaders are losing the confidence of their rank-and-file. And some major GOP donors are considering using their wealth to try to force out recalcitrant incumbents.

"It's a lot of tribes within one party, with many agendas, trying to do what they want to do," Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., said in an interview.

The intensifying fights threaten to derail efforts to overhaul the nation's tax laws and other major initiatives that GOP leaders hope will put them back on track. The party is still bogged down by a monthslong health-care endeavor that still lacks the support to become law, even as Senate GOP leaders plan to vote on it this week.

With his agenda stalled and Trump consumed by staff changes and investigations into Russian interference to help win election, Republicans are adding fuel to a political fire that is showing no signs of burning out. The conflict also heralds a potentially messy 2018 midterm campaign with fierce intraparty clashes that could draw resources away from fending off Democrats.

Winning control of both chambers and the White House has done little to fill in the deep and politically damaging ideological fault lines that plagued the GOP during Barack Obama's presidency and ripped the party apart during the 2016 presidential primary. Now, Republicans have even more to lose.

"In the 50 years I've been involved, Republicans have yet to figure out how to support each other," said R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr., the founder of the American Spectator, a conservative magazine.

On Capitol Hill, many Republicans are increasingly concerned that Trump has shown no signs of being able to calm the party. What Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., called the "daily drama" at the White House flared again last week when Trump shook up his communications staff and told the New York Times that he regretted picking Jeff Sessions to be his attorney general.

"This week was supposed to be 'Made in America Week' and we were talking about Attorney General Jeff Sessions," Dent grumbled in a phone interview Thursday, citing White House messaging efforts that were overshadowed by the controversies.

As Trump dealt with continued conflicts among his staff which culminated Friday in press secretary Sean Spicer resigning in protest after wealthy financier Anthony Scaramucci was named communications director he set out to try to resolve the Senate Republican impasse over health care.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

The president had a small group of Republican senators over for dinner last Monday night to talk about the issue. But the discussion veered to other subjects, including Trump's trip to Paris and the Senate's 60-vote threshold for most legislation, which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said he will not end. That didn't stop Trump from wondering aloud about its usefulness.

"He asked the question, 'why should we keep it?'" recalled Sen. James Lankford. R-Okla., who attended the dinner.

Two days later, some Republican senators left a White House lunch confused about what Trump was asking them to do on health care. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the next day that while the president "made very clear" that "he wants to see a bill pass, I'm unclear, having heard the president and read his tweets, exactly which bill he wants to pass."

The White House says the president prefers to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. McConnell has also raised the prospect of moving to only repeal the law. Neither option has enough votes. Nevertheless, McConnell plans to hold a vote early this week and bring the push to fulfill a seven-year campaign promise to its conclusion, one way or the other.

"One of the things that united our party has been the pledge to repeal Obamacare since the 2010 election cycle," said White House legislative affairs director Marc Short. "So when we complete that, I think that will help to unite" the party.

Trump's allies on Capitol Hill have described the dynamic between the White House and GOP lawmakers as a "disconnect" between Republicans who are still finding it difficult to accept that he is the leader of the party that they have long controlled.

"The disconnect is between a president who was elected from outside the Washington bubble and people in Congress who are of the Washington bubble," said Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., who works closely with the White House. "I don't think some people in the Senate understand the mandate that Donald Trump's election represented."

Trump issued a threat at the Wednesday lunch against Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev., who has not embraced McConnell's health-care bill. "Look, he wants to remain a senator, doesn't he?" Trump said in front of a pack of reporters as Heller, sitting directly to his right, grinned through the uncomfortable moment.

Heller is up for re-election in a state that Trump lost to Hillary Clinton and where Gov. Brian Sandovalwas the first Republican to expand Medicaid under the ACA. He later brushed the moment off as "President Trump being President Trump."

But some donors say they are weighing whether to financially back primary challengers against Republican lawmakers unwilling to support Trump's agenda.

"Absolutely we should be thinking about that," said Frank VanderSloot, a billionaire chief executive of an Idaho nutritional-supplement company. He bemoaned the "lack of courage" some lawmakers have shown and wished representatives would "have the guts" to vote the way they said they would on the campaign trail.

It's not just the gulf between Trump and Republican senators that has strained relations during the health-care debate. The way McConnell and his top deputies have handled the effort has drawn sharp criticism from some GOP senators.

"No," said Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., when asked last week whether he was happy with the way leadership has navigated the talks.

As he stepped into a Senate office building elevator the same day, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, would not respond to reporter questions about how good a job McConnell has done managing the health-care push. He flashed a smile as the door closed.

McConnell has defended his strategy, saying the process has been open to Republican senators, who have discussed it in many lunches and smaller meetings. Still, when it came time to write the bill, it was only McConnell and a small group of aides who did it. There was no outreach at all to Democrats, who have been united in their opposition.

In the House, the prospect of passing a 2018 budget this summer and a spending bill with funding for the Mexican border wall that Trump has called for remain uncertain, even though Republicans have a sizeable majority in the chamber. GOP disagreements have continued to flare during Speaker Paul D. Ryan's, R-Wis., tenure. There are also challenges in both chambers to achieving tax reform, which is expected to be among the next major GOP legislative undertakings.

Trump critics said the ongoing controversies over Russian interference in the 2016 election and probes into potential coordination with the president's associates would make any improvement in relations all but impossible in the coming months, with many Republicans unsure whether Trump's presidency will survive.

"The Russia stories never stop coming," said Rick Wilson, a vocal anti-Trump consultant and GOP operative. "For Republicans, the stories never get better, either. There is no moment of clarity or admission."

Wilson said Republicans are also starting to doubt whether "the bargain they made that they can endure Trump in order to pass X or Y" can hold. "After a while, nothing really works and it becomes a train wreck."

Roger Stone, a longtime Trump associate, said Trump's battles with Republicans are unlikely to end and are entirely predictable, based on what Trump's victory signified.

"His nomination and election were a hostile takeover of the vehicle of the Republican Party," Stone said. He added, "When you talk to some Republicans who oppose Trump, they say they will keep opposing him but can't openly say it."

Many Republican lawmakers have struggled to talk about the president publicly, fearful of aggressively challenging their party leader but also wary of aligning too closely with some of his controversial statements or policy positions. Instead, they often attempt to focus on areas where they agree.

"On foreign policy, I think he very much is involved in a direction that's far more in alignment since he's been elected with a bulk of the United States Senate than during the campaign," said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, R-Tenn.

Amid the discord, there are some signs of collaboration. The Republican National Committee has worked to build ties to Trump and his family. In recent weeks, Trump's son Eric, his wife, Lara, and RNC chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, among other RNC officials, met at the Trump International Hotel in Washington to discuss upcoming races and strategy.

That meeting followed a similar gathering weeks earlier at the RNC where Trump family members were welcomed to share their suggestions, according two people familiar with the sessions who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Nevertheless, the friction is building. Even among Trump's defenders, like VanderSloot, who said the president is "trying to move the ball forward," there are concerns he is picking too many fights with too many people. "I think he's trying to swat too many flies," VanderSloot said.

The broader challenge, some Republicans say, is to overcome a dynamic of disunity in the party that predates Trump and the current Congress. During the Obama years, it took the form of tea party-versus-establishment struggles, which in some cases cost Republicans seats or led them to wage risky political fights.

"There was a separation between Republicanism and conservatism long before he won the White House," said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. "The glue has been coming apart since Reagan."

Kelsey Snell contributed to this report.

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Republicans are in full control of government but losing control of their party - Chicago Tribune

The Senate returns to Washington on Monday with its GOP leaders determined to vote this week on their years-long quest to demolish the Affordable Care Act, even though the goal remains mired in political and substantive uncertainties.

Central questions include whether enough Senate Republicans will converge on any version of their leaders health-care plan and whether significant aspects of the legislation being considered can fit within arcane parliamentary rules.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) indicated on Sunday that the majority party may not have enough support to prevail on even a first step a routine vote to begin the floor debate.

Were continuing to work with all of the members. Were getting much closer to that, Barrasso, one of the chambers few physicians, said on CBSs Face the Nation.

Meanwhile, the two Republicans who have been the efforts most outspoken foes in the Senate relaunched complaints that their leaders are leaving them clueless as to what exactly will be put forward.

Late last week, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) adopted a strategy uncharacteristic for a tactician who usually spares his caucus needless difficult votes.

Several days earlier, McConnell had lacked enough support to call for a vote on a bill that would rescind parts of the ACA and replace them with a variety of conservative health policies. He quickly switched, saying the chamber would vote anew on a repeal-only measure passed in late 2015 by both the Senate and House and vetoed by then-President Barack Obama. Less than 24 hours later, that idea faltered, too.

So McConnell has resorted to a plan C: bringing to the floor an anti-ACA bill passed by the House this spring and allowing senators a sort of free-for-all for substituting in either of the Senate measures or new iterations.

We are still on track ... to have a vote early this week, a McConnell spokesman said on Sunday. The Senate will consider all types of proposals, Republican and Democrat.

But Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a centrist who says the Senates Better Care Reconciliation Act would cut Medicaid in ways that would hurt rural and vulnerable Americans, derided that strategy during an appearance on Face the Nation.

Lawmakers dont know whether were going to be voting on the House bill, the first version of the Senate bill, the second version of the Senate bill, a new version of the Senate bill or a 2015 bill that would have repealed the Affordable Care Act now and then said that somehow well figure out a replacement over the next two years, Collins said.

I dont think thats a good approach to facing legislation that affects millions of people and one-sixth of our economy, she added.

Her sentiment was echoed by conservative Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who contends that the main GOP proposal the Senate has been considering does not go far enough to undermine the ACA. The real question is, what are we moving to? What are we opening debate to? Paul said on CNNs State of the Union. He reiterated that he only would support a bill that would remove large portions of the ACA and not legislation continuing federal subsidies that help millions of people afford their insurance premiums.

Such ideological crosscurrents within his own party are what McConnell has been trying to surmount. The GOP has a narrow majority of 52 senators, and Democrats are unified against the effort to dismantle Obamacare. Given this partisan terrain, Senate leaders are relying on a legislative process known as reconciliation, which allows a bill to be passed with a simple majority when it has budget implications, rather than the customary 60 votes needed to ward off a potential filibuster by opponents.

But the reconciliation strategy hit a roadblock late Friday as Senate Democrats released a set of guidance from the chambers parliamentarian, who concluded that aspects of a June26 version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act probably would not fit within the budget rules. The guidance says several parts of the proposal would require a full 60 votes for approval, including limits on funding for Planned Parenthood and health plans that provide coverage for abortion both restrictions conservatives have favored.

The parliamentarian also cautioned against a significant part of the GOP bill meant to encourage Americans to maintain health coverage: allowing health plans to freeze out for six months applicants who have allowed their coverage to lapse.

McConnells spokesman, Don Stewart, noted that the parliamentarian similarly cautioned against portions of the 2015 ACA repeal bill, but it still passed through the reconciliation process. Neither Stewart nor other Senate staffers said what changes could be contemplated to get around the parliamentary problem.

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Senate Republicans plan to plow ahead with health-care vote this week - Washington Post