Economist Paul Krugman at the Banorte Ixe Plenary Session 2013 on November 6, 2023

When Donald Trump was running against Democrats in the United States' 2024 presidential race — first presumptive nominee Joe Biden, then the actual nominee Kamala Harris — he focused on the economy relentlessly, especially inflation, and promised to lower prices "on Day 1." And that messaging did a lot to help Trump get past the finish line, although not by a lot: Trump won the popular vote by roughly 1.5 percent.

Liberal economist Paul Krugman, during the race, repeatedly warned that Trump was not sincere about helping the working class. And in a Halloween 2025 column published on his Substack page, Krugman argues that the partial shutdown of the United States' federal government is inspiring Republicans to show their "cruel intensions" much sooner than planned.

"Federal funding for SNAP, the nutritional aid program still often referred to as food stamps, ends tonight," Krugman explains. "This will have catastrophic impacts on 42 million Americans, the great majority of them children, elderly or disabled. Millions more Americans are about to discover that health insurance has become vastly more expensive, in many cases unaffordable. Why are these terrible things happening? At a basic level, they're happening because Republicans want them to happen."

The former New York Times columnist continues, "Drastic cuts in food stamps and health care programs were central planks in Project 2025, which is indeed the Trump Administration’s policy platform, and were written into legislation in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that passed last summer. But the consequences of these cruel intentions weren't supposed to be this obvious this early."

Harris and other Democrats were vehement critics of the Heritage Foundation's far-right Project 2025 proposals, and Krugman believes that Trump was being totally disingenuous when he claimed to know nothing about Project 2025.

However, the GOP, according to Krugman, didn't want its attacks on safety-net programs to become obvious before the 2026 midterms.

"Why the backloading?" Krugman argues. "Presumably, Republicans believed that by the time Americans woke up to what was happening, the GOP would have effectively consolidated one-party rule, making future elections irrelevant. Instead, however, the mask is being ripped off right now, well ahead of schedule."

Paul Krugman's full Substack column is available at this link.