Many prominent economists, from Paul Krugman and Robert Reich to the University of Michigan's Justin Wolfers, are highly critical of President Donald Trump's handling of the U.S. economy. The New Republic's Michael Tomasky is quite critical as well, arguing that Trump isn't the first Republican president to cause major economic problems for the United States.

"Will 2026 finally be the year when a critical mass of Americans wakes up and realizes that Republicans always screw up the economy?" Tomasky writes in The New Republic. "I doubt it. The idea that the party of big business must surely be more trustworthy on economic policy just seems intuitively right to most people — and the Democrats, in their typical way, have done a horrible job explaining this truth to people. Still, the evidence is getting hard to ignore, so perhaps there's some hope."

Tomasky stresses that while former President Joe Biden's handling of the economy wasn't idyllic, it was decidedly better than Trump's.

"Donald Trump inherited an economy from Joe Biden that was perhaps not firing on all cylinders but was in pretty good shape all the same," Tomasky explains. "Real GDP grew at 2.8 percent in 2024. Wages were growing at a higher rate, 4.8 percent. Inflation closed out 2024 at 2.9 percent — high, but way down from the 7 percent of 2021. Compared to the EU and China, the U.S. economy was, as The Economist famously put it right before the election, 'The envy of the world.'"

Tomasky continues, "What has Trump done? What he usually does: Make things worse. Real GDP growth in the first quarter of this year was 2 percent…. GDP growth in 2025 was 2.1 percent — substantially lower than Biden's 2.9 for 2024. And inflation right now in the United States stands at 3.8 percent — way above the 2024 number. And now, The New York Times told us Sunday, we've hit another grim milestone: The national debt is bigger than the economy."

Tomasky laments that the "current economic mess" is "virtually all Trump's doing" — from "tariffs" to "the war in Iran."

"So here we go again: For the third straight time, a Democratic president handed a Republican president an economy that was at the least pretty good, and at most (Bill Clinton) really humming along very nicely," Tomasky writes. "And, for the third straight time, the Republican has made things worse. Which also means that Democratic presidents have to clean up messes left by their GOP predecessors."

Tomasky continues, "Let's review. George H.W. Bush oversaw a savings and loan crisis that required a massive bailout and a double-dip recession…. Clinton still created the boomingest economy of the last 60 years (yes, more than Reagan) and turned those deficits into a surplus. Then, in came George W. Bush, who reduced taxes and started an expensive war and cut regulations such that no one was guarding the hen house when mortgage lenders created the housing bubble that eventually led to the Great Meltdown. Then, Barack Obama had to clean all that up."

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