Are you feeling depressed? So is the economy, thanks to Donald Trump’s reckless tariffs. In a briefing this week meant to fluff the White House’s doublespeak report about economic performance under Trump, Trump’s chief acting economic advisor Tomas Philipson admitted that we’d be better off if Trump hadn’t turned America into an unreliable trade partner:
A new White House report touts the U.S. economy as expanding faster than anticipated, even as growth has undershot the 3% to 4% target that the Trump administration has promised to deliver.
The economy added more jobs, had a lower unemployment rate and grew faster than the Congressional Budget Office report had projected back in 2016, the Council of Economic Advisers said in its annual report, released Thursday.
…When President Donald Trump proposed his $4.7 trillion federal budget just over a year ago, the fiscal plan was premised on the economy growing at least 3% a year through his presidency. That projection proved overly rosy, with Philipson acknowledging that President Trump’s trade fights with China and other countries have slowed U.S. economic growth.
“Uncertainty generated by trade negotiations dampened investment,” Philipson said. He declined to quantify that impact, pointing instead to a Federal Reserve study in September estimating that uncertainly over trade could have cut growth in the gross domestic product by more than 1 percentage point through early 2020 [Kate Gibson, “White House Says Economy Is Clicking, But Concedes Trade Battles Hurt,” CBS News, 2020.02.20].
It’s nice to have Trump acknowledging what I reported back in October: tariffs have denied us a good chunk of economic growth.
When Philipson and his fellow Trump clingers claim that the Trump economy is better than expected, we have to note that they are comparing the Trump economy to imaginary numbers, to the speculation of the Congressional Budget Office back in 2016, not actual performance. The White House report downplays the fact that the economy is not delivering on Trump’s own promises or outperforming economic growth during the stable and sane Obama Administration.
Written in first-person (falsely, of course, because Trump is incapable of communicating in paragraphs), the White House report pretends that the Trump tax cuts contributed to the creation of four million jobs (page 6). Lest we crown Il Duce as creator laborum rex, page down to the White House’s own labor stats (Appendix B, Table B-22, p. 393) and do math. Once President Obama got us out of the recession, throughout his second term, jobs grew 1.54% each year. In the first three years of the Trump Nonministration, annual job growth dropped to 1.33%. Looking at Trump’s own numbers, we learn that if the job-creation conditions of the Obama Administration had continued to today, 623,000 more Americans would have jobs, and the unemployment rate for 2019 would have been 3.29% instead of 3.67%.
Now that’s depressing.
And, in related news:
Election-Year Trump Says He’s Ready To Float Farmers On Another River Of Taxpayer Cash
He again falsely claimed that the bill would be covered by tariffs “coming into the country,” when tariffs are actually paid by U.S. importers and consumers. (Mary Papenfuss)
I think Wharton is about ready to reclaim its econ degree. I HOPE this isn’t what they are teaching! ;-)
The terrible Obama economy drumpf trashed had 4 quarters of 4+% GDP growth. drumpf, so far has not sniffed 4% growth and last quarter’s 2% growth was a seriously far cry from the 5-6% growth drumpf claimed he would easily attain.
Unemployment reached 10% shortly after Obama was sworn in and thanks to Dems hard work, by the time Obama termed out, unemployment was down to 4.5%. Under drumpf it has barely fallen 1 %.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/01/14/obama-had-more-stock-market-records-than-trump/#6be3fe236684
creator allucinatio rex – The illusory truth effect (also known as the validity effect, truth effect, or the reiteration effect) is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusory_truth_effect#?te=1&nl=the-interpreter&emc=edit_int_20191206?campaign_id=30&instance_id=14333&segment_id=19358&user_id=dd86f4353d3ae6e373ad9c389586a608®i_id=7279026220191206
More BRIBE money for farmers!! How cool is that. Damn sure won’t vote for a Democrat to actually make the boys go out and do some work to open markets. Lay around the shack till the mail train comes back, rolling in those greenbacks, Chubby trumpers theme song…sing it Leon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q41qeN-VLKo
Leon Russell is sweet. However, Economic Oaf is not.
As soon as the election is over in November, he’s going to dump farmers faster than the Newt dumped his cancer ridden first wife.
Ouchy Ms. Debbo, true that. Farmers will be the last to know, even the rich ones. MBS and his Saudi bro’s will pick those places up and grow alfalfa for their ponies at depression era prices. We have a lot of water here so why the hell not? https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/25/california-water-drought-scarce-saudi-arabia
You know, if farmers would vote for Democrats, they would then be able to get the markets they need to sell corn. Mexico has had to reduce it’s corn crops because of climate change, big time. So that leaves us the US as the player in that market… that we don’t have because of Republican game playing. Wouldn’t even have to ship it over the big waters either, just put it on a railroad (that is yet to be built) and ship it south to the Indians of Mexico. Stop being so stupid and figure out your markets by voting Democratic.
Trump isn’t all bad and we have had some great successes due primarily to Trump’s chief economic talent, namely, incompetence. By now a competent individual with Trump’s hatred of Obama, narcissism, vanity and greed would have been able to stop all of the economic and job growth from Obama’s policy decisions.
Obama set things moving in the right direction and with the masterful execution of Trump’s incompetent efforts to undo anything Obama did, Trump has only been able to dent the economic growth Obama put into motion. Trump at least deserves praise on that front. Thank you Mr. President for your incompetence and resultant failures! Well done, Sir!
They’ll vote for the bribes. Medicare expansion ….. not so much; didn’t the blah guy have something to do with that. ??
drumpf trying to buy more farm votes in California…. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-19/trump-promises-valley-farmers-more-water-but-can-he-snap-his-fingers-and-make-it-happen
California promises a court fight.
MFI knows. 🤓 Two state agencies and Attorney General Xavier Becerra took Trump’s administration to court Thursday evening, claiming the new water plan will put populations of Delta smelt, Chinook salmon and Central Valley steelhead at severe risk and violates federal environmental law.
Gov Newsom served notice that he would sue just minutes before Trump appeared in Bakersfield.
Trump also refuses to have the normal ceremonies for new citizenship because of Denver’s sanctuary city pledge.
Toddler Tantrum is such a weak little man.