Trump and GOP promised economic growth much better than Obama's. That's not what happened
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Trump and GOP promised economic growth much better than Obama's. That's not what happened
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President Donald Trump (L) shares a moment with Chairman of House Ways and Means Committee Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) (4th L) and Vice President Mike Pence (2nd L), during an event to celebrate Congress passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on December 20, 2017 in Washington, DC.
President Donald Trump's central claim about his economic policies officially crashed into reality on Thursday.
Throughout the 2016 campaign and since, the president and his party have vowed to kick-start tepid Obama-era economic growth. Specifically, they insisted tax cuts and deregulation would return growth to its post-World War II average of 3 percent — a level, candidate Trump said derisively, that President Barack Obama became "the first president in modern history" never to reach in a single year.
New government data on Thursday morning show that Trump, too, has failed to reach the 3 percent promised land, according to one major metric. The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis measured 2018 growth at 2.9 percent, matching the peak Obama enjoyed in 2015.
Instead of annual 2018 growth, the White House emphasized a different growth measure comparing growth from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018.
By that measure, the economy grew 3.1 percent. But Obama, too, reached 3 percent growth on a four-quarter basis four different times.
Where Obama failed to enjoy 3 percent annual growth was on the BEA's official annual number. His 2015 peak was 2.9 percent, like Trump's for 2018. Thursday's preliminary 2.9 percent figure could later be revised, although economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics said the most likely direction would be down.
For the rest of the president's term, economic forecasters agree, that number will decline.
"2018 will be the high-water mark for growth in the Trump administration," Zandi predicted. He expects the decade-old economic expansion will shrink to 1.1 percent growth in 2020, with a better-than-even chance of recession.
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Wonderful. We have an ignorant, bigoted, belligerent presidency that will not produce the economic growth, which was allegedly the sole redeeming quality of this administration.
Oh he hasn't actually done a fucking thing. He has been one of the most incompetent and inconsequential presidents of all time, aside from him possibly flinging our country into a constitutional crisis. As I said years ago, he has the Midas Touch of Shit. Whatever he touches goes to shit, our government is just the ultimate victim.