4 Big Signs of a Trump Economic Recovery
President Donald Trump has some fun cutting symbolic red tape Thursday at the White House to demonstrate the huge growth in government regulations since 1960. The White House says the administration has killed 22 regulations for every new one. (Photo: Mike Theiler/UPI/Newscom)
The economic numbers clearly have improved on President Donald Trump’s watch, with unemployment down and consumer confidence stronger.
“We are just getting started,” @POTUS says.
“Economic growth has topped 3 percent,” Trump said Thursday at a White House event while addressing his administration’s reduction in regulations. “Two quarters in a row, except for the hurricanes, we would have almost hit 4 percent, and you remember how we were doing when I first took office.”
Trump also noted a difference between President Barack Obama’s eight years in office and the current outlook.
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“This country was going economically down,” he said. “Small business optimism is at its highest point in 34 years, and we are just getting started.”
Trump touted the coming benefits of tax reform, as Republican lawmakers iron out final details of their bill, and noted that his administration so far has killed 22 regulations for every one added. The president’s original executive order called for elimination of two regulations for every new one.
The debate with any president comes with how much credit or blame his policies deserve for the economy’s performance, and how big a factor his immediate predecessor’s policies are.
Some experts are more cautious than others in giving Trump credit.
The National Association of Manufacturers’ survey of members found that 94.6 percent of respondents had a positive outlook for their companies for 2018. That is the best result in the survey’s 20-year history, and up significantly from the survey done in late 2016, when positive outlook hit 63 percent.
This rosy attitude can be in part attributed to Trump’s policies, said Jay Timmons, president of the manufacturers association.
“Most of our respondents were talking about pro-growth tax policies and getting around the regulatory morass, and those are the two big priorities for manufacturers,” Timmons told The Daily Signal in an in-person interview. “The third priority [for manufacturers] is infrastructure. Those are three big priorities for the administration. This will encourage hiring and investment.”
Consumers are spending more money, but expanding companies’ physical investments—buying a major tool, a truck, a facility—will be the real measurement, said Salim Furth, a research fellow in macroeconomics at The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Data Analysis.
“The good direction of the economy in 2017 is largely a continuation of the strong economy that started in 2014, when we’ve had a huge decrease in energy prices because of fracking and low inflation,” Furth told The Daily Signal in a phone interview.
Attributing economic growth to one president is difficult, but the benefits of fracking—the extraction of fossil fuels from rocks—are clear and provable, Furth said.
“Anticipation of tax policies and regulatory policies can drive the economic outlook, but an administration that lives by the economic numbers dies by the economic numbers,” he said. “Politicians will always put their spin on numbers.”
But Trump should be credited as the “fountainhead of the current economic boom,” said Alfredo Ortiz, president of Job Creators Network, a pro-business advocacy group.
“His long and deeply held commitment to tax cuts and deregulation, among other policies, has given small businesses—and for that matter, all businesses—the confidence and ability to invest, hire, and expand, generating the current economic boom,” Ortiz told The Daily Signal in a written statement. “Now President Trump must continue to leverage his leadership skills to get his policies across the goal line and consolidate these gains.”
Here are four key categories of economic indicators and improvements since Trump took office.
1. Growth Gets Closer to 4 Percent
The gross domestic product grew by 3.3 percent for the third quarter of 2017, as the Trump administration touted the goal of achieving 4 percent growth.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers estimates that without the major hurricanes, growth would have reached 3.9 percent. During Obama’s administration, annual growth never reached 3 percent.
Labor productivity increased by 3 percent in the third quarter, up from 1.5 percent in the third quarter of 2016.
Household wealth jumped by $1.7 trillion to a record $96.2 trillion, according to the White House, and almost 1.4 million Americans dropped off the food stamp rolls since January, when Trump took office.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent for November, the lowest since President Bill Clinton 17 years ago.
Unemployment claims fell to their lowest level in 44 years, according to the White House, and 12 states—Hawaii, California, Idaho, Texas, Alabama, Maine, Mississippi, Tennessee, Washington, Colorado, North Dakota, and Oregon—reached record low unemployment rates.
2. Stock Market Hits Record Highs
The stock market performed well during the Obama administration, but hit new records under Trump.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is up over 32 percent since Election Day 2016. On Nov. 30, the Dow closed at over 24,000 points for the first time.
“Because of our regulatory and other reforms, the stock market is soaring to new record levels, 85 [times], not including today. Hopefully, we’ll set another one today, 85 times since Election Day, creating $5 trillion of new wealth,” Trump said during the White House event. “And the $5 trillion was as of about three weeks ago, so I assume we probably hit $6 trillion almost.”
3. Companies Are ‘Coming Back Fast’
Trump delights in touting examples of companies that are making major new investments in the United States.
“They’re all moving back,” Trump told reporters Thursday. “They’re moving back into our country. Those companies are coming back, and they are coming back fast.”
Some examples during the year include:
Foxconn Technology Group announced it was investing $10 billion in Wisconsin to build a factory that will employ 3,000 workers. The company predicted it will benefit another 22,000 workers indirectly.
Corning Inc. announced during a White House ceremony with Trump that it was investing $500 million in new U.S. production, creating 1,000 jobs.
Broadcom Limited announced at another White House ceremony its plan to move headquarters back to the United States, bringing $20 billion in annual revenue.
4. Healthy Consumer and Employer Confidence
To the degree that the economy is a self-fulfilling prophecy, business leaders, economists, and ordinary Americans seem to be feeling better about the days ahead.
The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index rose for the fifth month in a row in November, to a 17-year high of 129.5.
The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index reached a 16-year high.
The Wells Fargo/Gallup Small Business Index found that optimism among small businesses held steady in the third quarter after the biggest increase in decades during the second quarter. http://dailysignal.com/2017/12/15/4-big-signs-of-a-trump-economic-recovery/
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The economy has been in recovery mode for the last 9 years. Everything is trending in the same direction that it was trending when trump took office. In other words, trump has literally done nothing to take credit for the "recovery". He is still living in the shadow of greatness, and no matter what Trump does, he cannot take away the great job Obama did.
Sure thing. It has been in recovery, but now it is out of recovery and some real progress can be accomplished. Please tell me what things Obama did to speed recovery along............ Was it the quantitative easing he has had supporting him for 8 years? Was it the doubling the National Debt that did it? Please feel free to give me some examples of all the many things Obama has done to help move this economy forward.
Now how many times have various people tried to show you what then President Obama did for the recovery and to try to explain his other actions? It's just wasted effort.
Never mind ignoring the cause that necessitated the recovery is just what they want to go back to. The regressive party loves living in the rear view mirror.
I tend to take a more moderate position on our Economy and who is effecting it.....
I would argue that Obama presided over the slowest recovery since the Great Depression.......but it was still a recovery nonetheless.....so if there would have been no recovery......I don't think our economy would be doing so well right now......So ......I will give Former President Obama credit for Presiding over a recovery.......(a very slow one).....
Characteristics of the Obama Recovery
Good Stuff
1. Record Long stretch of modest Job Growth
2. Huge Growth in the Stock Market
3. Chrysler and GM didn't go Bankrupt
Bad Stuff
1. Record Spending
2. Record Deficit Spending
3. Record Low Job Participation Rate
4. Record Spending on Stock Market (Quantitative Easing)
5. Investors in Chrysler an GM were told to pound sand.
6. Record Low GDP growth
7. Record numbers on Food Stamps
8. Record number of Job Losses during his First Year (From Previous President Bush?....But if you don't give Obama credit for his first year.....How can you not give Trump credit for his first year?)
9. A large Percentage of Job Growth was low paying and part time jobs.
Note: It seems strange to me that our GDP growth has improved significantly.....AFTER Trump took office......In fact the Projected GDP growth for this year was in the low 2% range prior to Trump.
Conclusion: Our economy right now is a hybrid of Obama/Trump.....with signs pointing to a significant improvement in GDP growth and Stock Market Post Obama.
I know I have forgot some items from both the Good and the Bad.....
Have Fun Everyone.......and try to be nice......it is Christmas time after all.....
We are already seeing unbridled fiscal irresponsibility from lavish vacation expenditure for the POTUS an extended family. A tax revamp in an economy that the POTUS claims is on unequalled growth, when it is working well it needs changing, when my car is running tip top I usually put stale fuel in it, not. Wait until the stock market starts the inevitable out of control climbs and dives, the trickle on you economy will revisit the reaganomics and dubya successes.
If the current economy is running "tip top"......then how would it be running if the GDP growth improved another 1 to 2 percent? I would also argue that a 20 Trillion Dollar debt needs to be paid off......and every percentage point of Growth adds 3 Trillion Dollars in increased revenue over 10 years.
Given that the trickle down is revisiting a failed plan twice imposed where was the growth during reaganomics an GWB? They sold the same snake oil with an expected equal result.
Is that the growth from stock shares buy back and CEO bonus money? Empty promises that will likely never see the light of day, the deficit will grow and the market will falter and trump will point his little gnarly fingers at every one around him in accusation.
To paraphrase a famous saying:
1980 GDP was -.2%.......1984 GDP was %7.3
From 1983 to 1989 the LOWEST GDP growth for any year was %3.5......the average for this period was %4.3
Today.....we seem happy when we see 200,000 jobs created in one month........Reagan recorded a month that over 1 million jobs were created......From 1982 to 1989 Real per capita income increased by 20%.
Peter Ferrera has been pushing that LIE for years and no matter how many times it's debunked, he still seems to get gullible people to believe it and disseminate his LIE.
Congratulations.
Ok.....I will admit...after some more research.....that number is deceptive......The BLS does record over 1 million but there were extenuating circumstances.....but if that is all you can find fault in all the many claims in his article......The Reagan Recovery was one of the Strongest Economic Recoveries in Modern History.......
I remember the Carter years with the long lines at the gas pump......and people being told to wear a sweater.(heating bills too high).....Home loans having 18% interest rates......For goodness sakes they even invented a new index to measure just how bad it was....."The Misery Index"......Was Obama given a turd of an economy by Bush and Democrat Controlled Congress.........sure.....but Reagan had a huge mess as well......
BTW.....do you really have to include phrases .....like "gullible people" (to insinuate that I am gullible)........Do you think maybe ....we could be nice to each other instead?
Obama was given a turd with VERY LITTLE to help plush us out of it. Reagan had the advantage of being able to lower interest rates. Obama did NOT have that luxury.
I WAS being nice. It especially irks me when I see an otherwise smart person get pulled in...
I'm glad that you were willing to do your own due diligence and get the facts straight. Misinformation is endemic and IMHO needs to be weeded out wherever possible. It's always best when we educate ourselves before we post BUT, a good faith discussion is bolstered by admitting when one is mistaken and moving on to basing an argument on a foundation of facts.
Where do YOU come up with THIS stuff?
Secondly, we are talking about POLICY. Understand the nuance?
No he doesn't but, the Fed chair does.
Try to keep up.
excellent post!
That's a bit of a stretch. We were still in Obama's last fiscal year up until Sep. 30 and there's been no new Trump economic policy enacted or implemented. So, what we really have is the eight year Obama record and less than one year of the "expectation" of something with Trump. So, if any of the last year's "boom" is due to Trump it's built on wishes and hopes, not actual accomplishments.
As to your "bad" point of deficit spending being a "record," that is only true if one considers the unadjust dollar amounts. What economists often do is compare deficits or debt to GDP. When that's done, you get this kind of graph:
The steep decline of the post-war debt was due to very high individual tax rates on the rich and corporate rates around 50% plus a booming post-war economy. Of course, we were really the only economy left standing after the war so that played a big part of that boom.
The other thing that needs pointing out is that even though the deficits of the past 9 years have been massive there's been a steady and substantial decline in them to the point that the FY2018 (Obama's last FY) was at a "low" of $440B. The projected FY2019 deficit jumps to $530B and that doesn't factor in the revenue losses that the new tax bill will inflict on the budget which has not even been presented much less passed:
One thing we know for certain is that republicans don't really give a shit about deficits they produce (if they even admit they exist) but only the ones that their devastating fiscal and economic policies leave for dems to deal with.
I remember saying to many on the left when Obama was in office....."I'll be glad when Obama is gone.....so that instead of fighting over who was responsible for the mess we are in ......we can fight over who's responsible for all the Prosperity"
And if you want to give Obama 100% of the credit for this year.....that fine.....but just remember a couple things....
1. Nobody predicted GDP growth of 3% or more for 2017 with Obama's Policies...
2. Our economy depends on a lot of things....and Consumer Confidence plays a huge role in how much they spend.....
3. The Stock market took a dive anytime it looked like this tax plan wasn't going to happen....
4. Surely by the 2018 elections .....nobody will be giving credit to Obama for the economy......(well maybe I shouldn't say that)......
In addition, your argument about spending compared to GDP.....is nothing more than putting lipstick on a pig.....spin, spin, spin......
Also, the deficit spending didn't decrease substantually under Obama until the GOP took control of Congress......
Actually, many did. The FACT is, Obama's policies was their first clue. 24 out of 32 quarters @ 3+ GDP.
In fact, Obama's policies recorded a MINIMUM of a 3% growth average EVERY YEAR.
This is why some of us feel it's disingenuous to tout how 'wonderful' the 'Trump' economy is now, when not a peep was said when Obama garnered the same numbers or BETTER. Hell, listening to Trump during the campaign made some decry that our economy was going the way of Greece. Obama's growth wasn't 'fast enough' but Trump's is labeled as 'explosive' for THE SAME OR LOWER NUMBERS.
Yes, we know that consumers can be duped. There has NOT been a huge uptick in Manufacturing new orders this year. We ARE clearing off the back log, though that has been ongoing too.
That's because they are skittish little ponies.
OMG, he's let down the proletariat but he won't dare let us down. Would he? [Hits trade button]
As of September 2017, it's all on the GOP. Of course even though they have total control, they haven't even filed a freaking budget. Hell, Trump should be able to bang a easy back of the envelope outline for the boys between rounds of golf. Y'all have Paul Ryan, the golden goose, who could have at least dusted off his budget from his VP run.
Obama never topped 3% GDP, ever. He was the first president never to do so.
I posted a link, from the BEA, that documents annual and quarterly GDP since 1930.
Do YOU have empirical evidence that refutes this government data?
2009Q1 -4.5
2009Q2 -1.2
2009Q3 1.2
2009Q4 5.2
2010Q1 3.2
2010Q2 5.8
2010Q3 4.6
2010Q4 4.7
2011Q1 0.2
2011Q2 6.0
2011Q3 3.3
2011Q4 5.2
2012Q1 4.9
2012Q2 3.8
2012Q3 2.7
2012Q4 1.7
2013Q1 4.4
2013Q2 1.6
2013Q3 5.1
2013Q4 6.1
2014Q1 0.7
2014Q2 7.0
2014Q3 7.1
2014Q4 2.6
2015Q1 3.2
2015Q2 5.0
2015Q3 3.0
2015Q4 1.3
2016Q1 0.8
2016Q2 4.7
2016Q3 4.2
2016Q4 3.8
BTW, I counted wrong.
So your post begs the question. What data did you see that made you be so damn sure about Obama's GDP #/s? In short, whose lies have you been believing?
As Texans post points out, your site is full of shit, find a new one.
Actually, Texas comment was:
I don't see anywhere in his comment that he says anything about anyone being 'full of shit'.
So let's look at the data I posted from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Are the numbers they document for the first three quarters of Trumps term full of shit too?
2017Q1 3.3
2017Q2 4.1
2017Q3 5.5
Of JUST the Obama data?
I'm starting to think that no amount of empirical evidence will alter you position. Most of the time, y'all merely demand that proof is posted. With you, it seems that only a proclamation from on high would cause you to acknowledge facts.
Hell, Cave Man, I don't want your head to explode or anything. BUTT I'm not going to sit here and let you infer that I'm lying or that my source is BS. If you can't accept facts, so be it. But don't try to pretend that I am the one disseminating falsehoods.
Seems as though that the higher interest rate caused by the GOP failure to raise the debt limit required us to pay more interest on the national debt.
That is because the people who were in control of those stocks are part of the upper 10% and, it would have hurt their bottom line, if it didn't pass.
A significant part if that debt was attributable to Bush who kept the Iraq War costs off the books thus hidden from Americans. Obama had the integrity to reveal that reality and consequently became debt that first appeared in his administration.
The ugly, stupid and ignorant misbeliefs, intentional and otherwise on the way to putting a Jess Willard in the White House, has placed America in jeopardy ... the most recent being the Republican Kleptocracy that will fuck all but the One Percent and line the pockets of a pack of legislator whores.
Prove it.
And that's a convenient untruth by one who has no viable rebuttal … and who implies I'm a liar!
When you don't know what you're talking about, instead of the usual in-your-face crap, just remain silent.
How the US public was defrauded by the hidden cost of the Iraq war
When the US invaded Iraq in March 2003, the Bush administration estimated that it would cost $50-60bn to overthrow Saddam Hussein and establish a functioning government. This estimate was catastrophically wrong: the war in Iraq has cost $823.2bn between 2003 and 2011 . Some estimates suggesting that it may eventually cost as much as $3.7tn when factoring in the long-term costs of caring for the wounded and the families of those killed.
The most striking fact about the cost of the war in Iraq has been the extent to which it has been kept "off the books" of the government's ledgers and hidden from the American people. This was done by design. A fundamental assumption of the Bush administration's approach to the war was that it was only politically sustainable if it was portrayed as near-costless to the American public and to key constituencies in Washington. The dirty little secret of the Iraq war – one that both Bush and the war hawks in the Democratic party knew, but would never admit – was that the American people would only support a war to get rid of Saddam Hussein if they could be assured that they would pay almost nothing for it.
The most obvious way in which the true cost of this war was kept hidden was with the use of supplemental appropriations to fund the occupation. By one estimate , 70% of the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2008 were funded with supplemental or emergency appropriations approved outside the Pentagon's annual budget. These appropriations allowed the Bush administration to shield the Pentagon's budget from the cuts otherwise needed to finance the war, to keep the Pentagon's pet programs intact and to escape the scrutiny that Congress gives to its normal annual regular appropriations.
With the Iraq war treated as an "off the books" expense, the Pentagon was allowed to keep spending on high-end military equipment and cutting-edge technology. In fiscal terms, it was as if the messy wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were never happening.
More fundamentally, the Bush administration masked the cost of the war with deficit spending to ensure that the American people would not face up to its costs while President Bush was in office. Despite their recent discovery of outrage over the national debt, the Republicans followed the advice of Vice-President Dick Cheney that "deficits don't matter" and spent freely on domestic programs throughout the Bush years. The Bush administration encouraged the American people to keep spending and "enjoy life", while the government paid for the occupation of Iraq on a credit card they hoped never to have to repay .
Most Americans were not asked to make any sacrifice for the Iraq war, while its real costs were confined to the 1% of the population who fought and died there. As a result, the average American was never forced to confront whether pouring money borrowed from China into the corrupt Iraqi security services was worth it, or whether it made more sense to rebuild infrastructure in Diyala, rather than, say, Philadelphia.
One consequence of the way that the true costs of the Iraq war was hidden from the American people was an explosion of fraud, waste and abuse. The recent final report of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Sigir) estimates that the US lost to corruption or waste at least $8bn of the $60bn devoted to reconstructing Iraq.
Much of the reconstruction expense had no useful political effect: as Spencer Ackerman has pointed out , Iraqi officials cannot point to a single completed project that the US managed during the course of the occupation. The hundreds of ill thought-out projects and half-baked ideas that marred the American reconstruction effort provides a powerful explanation for why the US campaign for "hearts and minds" never worked, and why Iraq is hardly a pro-American bastion in the Middle East today.
An occupation conducted through under-scrutinized emergency appropriations enabled dozens, if not hundreds, of private companies to act like pigs at the trough – wasting taxpayer dollars on frivolous expenses while the insurgency raged around them. These private companies were able to behave so rapaciously because they were so desperately needed by the US government to run the Iraq war without revealing its true cost to the American public.
Another factor that was kept hidden from the American public was the skyrocketing costs of deploying US troops abroad. According to a Congressional Research Service estimate (pdf) , the average annual operational cost per US soldier in Iraq was $462,000 between 2005 and 2009. To control costs and avoid imposing a draft, the US resorted to a parallel army of private contractors, numbering 100,000 people or more at the height of the war.
Yet, this policy backfired, as private contractors cost nearly as much and wasted millions – by one estimate , losing $12m a day between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The only advantage they had was that they allowed the American people to be lulled into thinking that the Iraq war had cost them nothing.
The extent to which the US hid the costs of the war by relying on private contractors has left a disastrous legacy within Iraq itself. Many of these contractors behaved recklessly; sometimes, they even shot at crowds when they felt trapped or threatened . Thus private military contracting help to turn the population even more against the US and the occupation.
Even after the US withdrawal, Iraq has had to contend with dozens of private security companies, many still under US contract, running operations in contravention of Iraqi law. An estimate in February 2012 revealed there were 109 separate private security companies, with 36,000 men under arms, still operating in Iraq months after the American army had gone home. While US attention has drifted from Iraq, the costs of this reckless war are still being incurred. The American embassy in Baghdad remains a heavily-armed fortress: a relic of the imperial ambitions that the US had in that country.
Through 2012, the US is projected to have spent $17.7bn (pdf) on police training and civilian reconstruction projects in Iraq. This at a time when hundreds of states and towns across the US face harsh budget cuts in essential services and care for their poor and sick.
The Iraq war provides many lessons, but among the most important is that the promise of a cheap and easy war never turns out to be true. The Bush administration sold the American people a bill of goods with Iraq, offering them a short and glorious war while secretly running up a tab that future generations will be left with. Along with Afghanistan, the war in Iraq added $1.4tn to the national debt .
The dishonesty of this approach is due to a fundamental fact about the United States: that while its leaders may have grand international ambitions, most Americans have no appetite for, or interest in, nation-building abroad. This mismatch between our leaders and ourselves means that our politicians will lie to us about running their wars on the cheap while finding ways to pass on the costs to those not yet born. That lesson should be remembered by any American who sees a future president promise, as George Bush did , that such embarking on such a conflict today will "lift a terrible threat from the lives of our children and grandchildren".
Actually, I PROVED that GDP was over 3% MANY TIMES during Obama's terms with empirical evidence, which is a track record that you seem incapable of emulating.
I have heard this claim that the Iraq war was "off the books".....and I believe that a more appropriate term would be "hidden"......what I mean is that the deficit spending numbers for Bush were accurate.....about $5 Trillion (pretty bad IMO).....the reason that I would say the word "hidden"......I don't think it was "classified" as military spending.....it was classified as other things...therefore hidden......
I don't believe the notion that the money that was spent on the Iraq War was somehow completely off the books and Obama found all this Money off the books and He was given credit for spending it........
Even if you are correct.....and ever cent of deficit spending on the war was given to President Obama and not given to Bush.....
$1.4 Trillion is a relatively small number compared to the approximate $10 Trillion of Deficit Spending that occurred during the Obama Presidency.......now I'm sure that the left will blame the rest on the Recession.....and I wouldn't say that Obama didn't spend some of that on the recession......but I would argue that for over $8.5 Trillion Dollars of Deficit Spending.....I would have expected better results in a Recovery.......We had the slowest recovery since WWII......Now....if the argument becomes "Obama doesn't hold the purse strings".....then to be fair......we shouldn't give all the blame to Reagan for his deficit spending....Also, the Obama Administration inherited a Democrat Controlled Congress.....and largest Deficit Spending Increases Occurred under their watch.....not to mention the Financial Crisis....but nobody seems to want to admit that part......they simply give Bush all the Blame....but forget Congress had oversight and they were controlled by Democrats.....(There was plenty of blame to spread around)
Just my "Take".....I could be wrong....and that is what is nice about these discussions.......ie......finding the Truth. (Not an easy thing to do these days with all the spin that we see in the media these days)....
In Conclusion.....I would say......The Bush administration were big spenders......but they paled in comparison to the Obama Administration.......
Have a good day A. Mac!