Say one thing for Mariannette Miller-Meeks: Her timing is lousy.
On the same day the Republican congresswoman toured a Pella company to try to sell the idea that Donald Trump’s new tax cut law is the tonic for what ails Iowa manufacturing, Deere & Co., announced it was laying off more than 230 workers.
Workers in the Quad-Cities and Waterloo are being hit hard by the layoffs, and it comes after the company experienced “a gloomy earnings report,” according to the Des Moines Register.
Small wonder. Low commodity prices are buffeting the farm economy, but so are the tariffs that Trump and Republicans in Congress are imposing on the American economy.
As Reuters reported, these import taxes are hurting companies that rely on imported raw materials.
This has added to the woes of farm-equipment makers who were already grappling with slow demand due to a slump in crop prices for wheat, corn and soybeans in North America and farmers opting to rent machinery instead of buying.
The company now expects a pre-tax tariff impact of nearly $600 million for the year, compared with $500 million projected last quarter.
That’s not chump change. Even for Deere.
Republican members of Congress, like Miller-Meeks, are trying to counter this reality by traveling their districts to try to convince people the Trump tax cuts will be good for manufacturers.
They just happen to be ignoring the rest of the story — the tariffs, which a recent article in the conservative National Review called “an anvil dragging the (manufacturing) sector down.”
How heavy is that anvil?
Heavy enough that producer prices in July rose at its fastest rate in three years. Some economists think this is just the beginning, too.
Iowa’s manufacturing economy doesn’t need an anvil dragging it down. It’s hurting enough already.
The trend line on manufacturing jobs in this state has, for the most part, been diving downward for two years. And while other Midwest states are feeling similar effects, the state of Iowa is getting slammed especially hard.
Iowa has lost 5% of its manufacturing jobs since its most recent employment peak in that sector, in 2023.
To be fair, the Register article did say that Vermeer Corp., the site of Miller-Meeks’ visit Monday, “is looking to hire about 200 production workers,” in part due to the tax provisions.
That is good news. But there was no mention in the article of the tariffs.
Miller-Meeks may not want to talk about tariffs, but for Iowans they’re impossible to ignore.
A raft of studies, from the private and public sector, show that Republican economic policies — including the tariffs — will slow growth from where it was before Trump came into office.
A recent USA Today article cited Moody’s Analytics, saying, when taken together, Republican “economic policies will likely significantly slow U.S. growth and push up inflation…”
Congressional Republicans will tell you the experts are wrong; that politicians are the ones you can trust.
They try to claim the experts got it wrong with the 2017 Trump tax cuts, too. But as I pointed out in a recent column, Rep. Zach Nunn has already tried this deceptive tactic.
In fact, when it comes to manufacturing jobs in Iowa, the trend shows that employment in this sector grew at the same rate in the year before the first Trump tax cuts as it did in the year after.
I don’t believe the American people are going to be fooled by Republican road shows.
They know the US economy is hurting, and the GOP’s taxes on imports are only making it worse. Which is why 61% of Americans disapprove of the tariffs, according to a Pew Research Center poll published last week.
Only 38% of Americans think these tariffs are a good thing.
People know what is headed their way, even if this wave hasn’t quite crashed over them yet. You can’t raise almost $28 billion in import taxes a month — an average of about $80 from every American — without them getting hurt.
Over a year’s time, that adds up to almost $1,000. People down the income ladder get hit even harder.
Just look at Creighton University’s latest Mid-America Business Conditions Index, a leading indicator for the economy in the Midwest. It reported elevated wholesale inflation. And in Iowa, the index fell from 48.0 in June to 43.7 in July, as manufacturing exports slumped 10% during the first part of this year compared to last year.
Republican members of Congress want people to ignore this economic reality by only talking about half the story—and bad-mouthing economists and others who are telling the whole truth.
They’ll also ignore the fact that the average tax cut in this law for the top 1% in Iowa is $76,000. Meanwhile, middle-income Iowans get the leftovers. And that’s before the Republican tariffs kick in.
They’ll ignore the projections, like the one by the respected Yale Budget Lab, that says when all of the Republican economic policies, including tariffs, are considered, the only people who will see an increase in their incomes will be the richest 10% of Americans.
They’ll ignore the millions of people who will lose their health care coverage and the trillions of dollars that will be added to the federal debt because of this law.
And they’ll ignore the anvil that’s weighing down the economy. It’s in their best interests to do so.
Unfortunately, the people who can’t ignore it are the ones who will pay the price. The ones it will drag down.