As we're all navigating a divisive election, no matter what happens, the question remains,

how the heck are we going to move forward together?

So in this season of the StoryCorps podcast from NPR, stories from people who made a choice

to confront the conflicts in their own lives head on

and in sharing stories from the bravest among us. Maybe we can take their lead and find

some hope for the rest of us. Get the Story Corps podcast wherever you listen.

This is fresh air. I'm Dave Davies. In this incredibly close presidential election,

voters repeatedly cite the economy as a leading issue.

And if ever there was a circumstance where we should have plenty of information about the

candidates' approaches, this is it.

Republican Donald Trump was president for four years ending in 2020, after which Democrats

Joe Biden and the party's current candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris took the reins,

a juxtaposition that should offer some basis for comparing the performance of the two

tickets.

With that in mind, we've called on a respected economist to offer some perspectives on the economic records of the two administrations

and on the presidential candidate's campaign proposals for the country's economic future.

Those proposals differ sharply on taxes, spending, tariffs, regulation, energy, and

industrial policy and more.

Our guest is David Wessel, a senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, and director of their Hutchins Center for

Fiscal and Monetary Policy.

Wessel worked for 30 years at the Wall Street Journal.

He shared two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, one at the Wall Street Journal. He shared two Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, one at the Wall Street Journal,

...