Trump’s Economic “Boom”? No, Not Hardly
One of the lies Trump and his sycophants repeat ad nauseam is that simply because of him, the economy is “booming” and growing like “never before in US history”. That’s complete bullshit of course, and NO economic performance number supports Trump’s boasting. Trump’s greatest accomplishment has been fortunate to have followed Barack Obama who bucked huge political obstruction to kick start the economy by pumping billions into rebuilding industries and extending unemployment benefits to out of work Americans. Anyone who has studied Economics 101 knows that a key tool for bringing an economy out of a downturn is INCREASING government spending to get people back to work. Obama fought the Repubs tooth and nail, and succeeded. Trump is the beneficiary of that courage, as our economy is simply on the same trend line established by Obama policy. In fact, Trump is trailing behind some measures established by Obama because of his idiotic trade war.
Here are a few examples:
US GDP Growth
S&P 500
Job Growth
Remember when Trump promised 6% GDP growth? To bring coal back? To increase manufacturing jobs? None of those promises have been kept. None. Essentially, the economy has continued its up and to the right trend more in spite of Trump rather that because of Trump.
Even though it’s denied by Trumpists, truth does matter. And the truth is that the economy left by Obama is strong enough to so far resist Trump’s destructive infestation of the White House.
Once again a Republicon will leave the overdue bills for a Democratic administration to pay. For decades the Cons have browbeat liberals with the tag “tax and spend liberals.” Time to hit back with “no tax, no pay, and delay” conservatives. Still working on Dubya’s war debts. Can’t wait for all the hidden costs of this maladministration. Just in education destruction alone, what will it cost to rebuild what Bitsy DeVile destroyed?
1I have some libertarian friends who support gold-based dollars and fervently believe in the Austrian School of economic theory. We have interesting discussions when I point out that government spending during WWII brought the US out of the depression. We literally blew up the money after turning it into bombs and bullets and it still worked because we built factories to blow up money and hired people to make it explode. My friends make vague reference to it being a special case. Yup, actually having a high marginal tax rate (94%) was definitely a special case. To “The Austrians,” govt spending or high taxes spell economic doom. Both at once should have been the death knell of the USA, not the economic recovery and foreign aid to the world that actually happened. Turns out you can have guns and butter but not without taxes.
2Here’s one way to look at it: this year’s deficit is about $1 trillion. That’s roughly 6% of GDP. The GDP growth rate is a bit under 3%. If you subtract that 6% deficit from the growth rate, the GDP is actually shrinking by about 3% a year.
Yeah, I know it’s not that simple,but it’s not a bad first approximation. Deficit spending pumps up the economy, and Combover Crime Lord’s boom is the direct result of it.
3Question: is economics a science? Maybe thats why it was such a flop in undergrad school when the students already achieving straight A’s on all of their other classes suddenly got C’s. Seriously, anyone who can ace inorganic chemistry should have been able to shovel out an A in economics. The textbook was almost as good a read as your ordinary dime a dozen novel. So maybe it really was the instructor?
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