Obamanomics v Trumponomics

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Democrats and their media hate history, because history is so seldom on their side. When you can't win with the facts then you need to either: (a) attack the source (b) distort the facts (c) change the subject (d) or just find an excuse to go away. A perfect example of this is comparing the economics of Obama versus Trump. During Obama, the economy was resoundingly bad that Obama and the Press both blamed Bush for it, or cooked the numbers to try to convince you it wasn't as bad as it seemed. After 8 years of malaise (with a few warm years in the middle), Trump took office, and the economy took off like a rocket, exactly like he'd predicted. Since the Press can't let the facts stand for themselves, they trying to revise history to pretend that this is because of Obama. Let's dive into the facts...

Issue Lie Truth
Obamanomics v Trumponomics Left view: Obama saved us from the Bush recession using Keynesian $1T stimulus that was on infrastructure, he created millions of job and lead to a booming economy. Trump on the other hand is ruining us with deficits, trade wars and stock market swings. The only reason Trump saw any goodness at all, was lingering effects of Obama (Obama tried to take credit for the Trump economy, and blamed Bush for the Obama economy). The recession was caused by Democrat real-estate policies. Obama's wasteful spending and regulation lead to the softest recovery since the Great Depression. Most measurements, total employment, GDP, consumer confidence, number on government assistance, were all in malaise levels. After Obama predicted we were the best we were going to be, markets would crash under Trump, and we'd never see high GDP growth, Trump started enacting tax cuts, de-regulation, and some market protections -- and the economy took off. (With a slight hiccup after Dems took the house in 2018, and the Fed raised interest rates to cool growth). Despite those head winds, total employment and minority employment hit best levels, ever. Number on government aid plummeted. And we hit GDP growth that Obama predicted we'd never see again.

Revisionism

I must say I'm shocked that one of the fathers of Obamanomics, would write a fictionalized version of history in FT[1]. Not because of the audacity of revisionism, but he has to realize that the numbers are out there, and long term it's going to eviscerate his credibility. More surprising is that FT would do the same to their credibility. Even if his facts were right (they aren't), the public perception is going to be hugely divergent, and remember the slight to the truth. More so, as charts and facts keep contradicting the message.

This is exemplified by real journalists like moi, Washington Times, or others, saying "not so fast". [2]

Of course it's at least partly true that President's aren't responsible for everything that happens, some of it is timing. And Trump inherited a cool economy, that had been suppressed by businesses fear of rising taxes, regulation, and the politicization of various agencies under Obama. Remember, the IRS, FBI, CIA, NSA, FDA, DEA, EPA, and so on, all got caught in scandals and abuse of power in favor of Obama's agenda, and against businesses and conservatives. So it's no wonder that investors and businesses were cautious on growth/investing, and were more huddled down. So the economy just needed a little breathing space to take off.

But it's at least equally false. Trump's lowering taxes, making it easier to repatratriate foreign earnings, deregulating, making the economic environment much more business friendly -- all had positive effects. Even his pro-fairer trade seems to be having an encouraging effect. And just the threat in 12/2017 that Trump was in trouble (because of the Fake ABC Story that he'd pushed for a meeting with Russians) caused a temporary dip in the market, that ABC had to apologize for. So implying that it had nothing to do with Trump, discredits the "Economists" and publication that post it.

It's also true it depends on what you measure and how. Democrats are masters of the big lie, and skewing numbers.

But by reasonable standards we had the slowest recovery since the great depression, and still hadn't gotten back to higher employment (when you factor in normal population growth). We also had high food stamps, and a cooling for the 2 quarters before the election (which is not that unusual in election years). After Trump, the downtrend reversed, the growth rate doubled, GDP and job starts went up, unemployment trended down (to the point where real unemployment / total labor participation was really up), consumer confidence shot up, and the amount of money being spent by companies increase, salaries started increasing. Everything got better -- even in the face of a trade battle or two.

The question isn't whether Trumponomics is better in the short term. We can match Trump's economy to the first or last 6-12 months of Obama, and it's a hands down win for Trump. The question is whether it's a short or long term impact. (Obama's economy did start heating up after Republicans took control of congress and slowed down his spending and regulation). And Trump's economy took off in the first 2 years, but slowed a bit after that as the Democrats took the house, and the Fed raised interest rates (which has a cooling effect).

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