Posted on 02/25/2017 4:16:53 PM PST by Rufus Shinra
President Trump has done what has seemed like an impossible task for recent administrations, and that is to actually curb government spending and reduce the national debt by $12 Billion during his first month in office.
Trump announced his achievement of reducing the national debt by sending out a tweet, which quickly caused the media to scramble for stories that could diminish this financial victory.
The day before Trump was sworn into office, January 20, 2017, the national debt was $19,947 billion. A month later on February 21, 2017, the US debt was reduced to $19,935 billion, a decrease of roughly $12 billion. Although the number doesn't look like it's moved that much, when you're dealing in the trillions of dollars a few billion or so can seem like a deceptively low amount.
The following chart comes directly from the Treasury Department's "Treasury Direct" website, which is run by the U.S. Department of the Treasury Bureau of the Fiscal Service, and with a date range of January 23, 2017 to February 23, 2017.
As the above chart indicates, the national debt started decreasing only days after Donald Trump took office in the end of January. The $19,935 billion total comes from the date of 2/21/17, but you can see as of 2/23/17 the debt is actually lower and is now at $19,913 billion.
Compared to the Obama administration's handling of the national debt, any decrease is a welcome achievement.
The typical mainstream media suspects were quick to diminish Trump's announcement on reducing the national debt, which is extraordinary given that the nation's deficit had nearly doubled under Obama's administration. During the 8 years that Barack Obama managed the country, the national debt increased from $10.6 trillion to $19.7 trillion as of October of last year.
Needless to say, the media couldn't possible remain silent while the president takes credit for his achievements, as they released a slew of attack articles on Trump's tweet.
The usual publications, such as the New York Times and Washington Post where you would struggle to find a single positive article about Trump, published headlines maligning Trump like "National Debt Dips. Trump Crows. Well, Sure, but …" and "Trump is upset the media is not reporting a meaningless statistic about the national debt".
To many Americans worried about the burden that the national debt places on their children and grandchildren, the deficit is hardly a "meaningless statistic", as the Washington Post described it.
The Business Insider also chimed in with the headline "Trump tweets wildly misleading comparison of the national debt in his first month to Obama's". Considering Obama added more debt to the country than any other president before him, I'd say any decrease is an exceptional story to report.
Even the publication Teen Vogue, which really has no place reporting on politics, released a story in attempt to malign Trump's statement titled "Donald Trump Falsely Takes Credit For Decrease In National Debt".
Besides the fact that the national debt has decreased significantly for the first time in quite a while, the media's reaction to Trump's tweet shows a level of aggression, opposition and hatred for a president whose policies revolve around the positive slogan "Make America Great Again".
So how can the media be baffled as to why Trump said, "fake media is the enemy of the American people", and they are referred to as the "opposition party" by conservatives? When their main objective seems to be destroying the current administration, rather than reporting real news and letting the country decide on how to interpret it, is it any wonder that American's trust in the media sank to new lows in 2016, with only 32% saying they have a "great deal" of faith in the validity of their reports.
Glad someone else caught that too. They also seem to confuse debt with deficit. Two very different things.
Well, they’ve been telling us it wasn’t possible to reduce the debt. So obviously, he couldn’t have, right? And if he did, it must be a bad thing.
That’s the way the fake media operates.
Now, in fairness, the debt is $20 trillion, so $12 billion isn’t a lot. But it’s a nice start.
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