August 4, 2020: Trump's Roaring Economy not really Roaring

 

8/4/20: A conservative friend told me this week that he intended to vote for Trump again. Trump, he said, had created a “roaring economy.” 

I told him I thought he was wrong, but promised to check my facts. I’ve been wrong plenty of times. In one post, I originally had Sen. Tammy Duckworth giving a speech from the floor of the House of Representatives, a careless error, and a stupid one. She did call the president “Cadet Bone Spurs,” though. 

I still love that. 

So, I’m as careful as can be on this blog. I’m also a super spreader when it comes to typos; so I often go back and edit.

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I immediately found this graph, showing quarterly GDP growth from 2011 to 2020, for the United States.

Even if we ignore those last two bars, and try to play nice, Trump hasn’t done nearly as well as his fans imagine. He started off adequately in 2017, with two quarters of GDP growth of 2.3 and 2.2 percent. 

Then came four good quarters in a row: 3.2, 3.5, 3.8 and 2.7. Those results were fueled in part by massive tax cuts. Those cuts were supposed to juice growth to 4 percent and “pay for themselves.” That was the “sugar high.” The high wore off. Since then, we’ve had six quarters, when averaged out, of modest growth: 2.1, 1.3, 2.9, 1.5, 2.6 and 2.4.

 

The “roaring economy” stopped roaring during the second half of 2018. The federal deficit ballooned. 

And that was before the coronavirus hit.

 

Obama, of course, took over just as the bottom fell out and the Great Recession began. The U.S. economy stalled and shrank slightly in 2008, shedding more than 3.5 million jobs that year. That wasn’t Obama’s fault. The plunge continued in 2009. The economy shrank at an annual rate of 2.5%.

Growth in 2010 was solid, at an annualized rate of 2.6%, weaker in 2011 at 1.6%, okay in 2012 at 2.2%. During Obama’s second term we had one good year (2.9% in 2015), one decent year (2.4% in 2014), and two weak years (1.8% in 2013 and 1.6% in 2016.) 

Trump took charge and, so far, we have had one good year (2.9% in 2018), and two decent years (2.4% in 2017 and 2.3 % in 2019). Unfortunately, during his watch, the bottom has fallen out of the economy again.

 

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NEW CONFIRMED cases of coronavirus for today: 

49,998.