Trumponomics is no flop

The Hill ^ | 08/08/19 | Stephen Moore

[yesthatjallen]

Back in the summer of 1982, about 18 months into the Reagan presidency, the Washington Post wrote an editorial that sneered, “Reaganomics is now a failure for all to see.” Two months later began one of the strongest and longest economic revivals in American history, with growth rates that surged above 7 percent. Whoops! The timing of the Washington Post editorial could hardly have been worse. I framed that old editorial and kept in my office for many years. Reagan used to say joyfully, “I knew our economic plan was working when they stopped calling it Reaganomics.”

I was thinking of that editorial the other day after someone sent me a recent column in the New York Times by the economist Paul Krugman entitled, “Why was Trumponomics a flop?” It is fair to say that Krugman has never been anything but a savage critic of the economic agenda of President Trump, and he has rooted against the economy ever since Election Day 2016. The day after Trump beat Hillary Clinton, the Nobel prize winning economist predicted a stock market collapse, which was slightly off the mark, given that the stock market is up near 50 percent and $10 trillion in wealth has been created since Trump was elected.

But that did not stop the Krugman screed from going viral, as liberals celebrated the news that Trumponomics has crashed and burned. What struck me about the column, and the joyous response to it, is just how divorced it is from the reality that most normal people see and feel every day. We have today the lowest unemployment rate in nearly 50 years, low and stable inflation, the biggest wage gains in a decade, the highest stock market ever, and a record 7.5 million unfilled jobs. Those blue collar jobs in construction and manufacturing that President Obama declared would never come back are up by almost 1.2 million jobs in less than three years.

Recent Commerce Department revisions in income gains during 2017 show 5 percent gains for the middle class, which is significant given that inflation is almost nonexistent outside of education and health care. So is Trumponomics really a flop? Only in the sense that “Gone with the Wind,” “Becoming” by Michelle Obama, and LeBron James can be called flops.

This is not to say that we have an A+ economy. Krugman is right that the trade war with China and other tariffs have subtracted from growth this year. Business investment, which is greatly incentivized under the Trump tax cuts, has been decent but not as strong as we had hoped so far. Federal deficit spending is way too overboard. Still, if Obama had ever produced economic prosperity as we have today, he would have led an entire marching band down Pennsylvania Avenue playing “Ode to Joy.”

Krugman grudgingly admits the obvious that unemployment is lower and growth is higher under Trump than under Obama. But he ascribes the Trump prosperity to high budget deficits and easy money Federal Reserve policy. This is absurd for two reasons. First, government spending and printing money does not cause growth. If it did, Venezuela would be the richest nation on the planet. Second, the budget deficits under Obama were almost twice as high as a share of gross domestic product during his first term than they have been under Trump. Big federal borrowing and “shovel ready” projects should have sent the economy out of this world under Obama. Instead, we got the flimsiest recovery in half a century.

A recent Gallup poll found 70 percent of Americans rating the economy as good or great, roughly double the number during the Obama presidency. The disparagement of the Trump record by Krugman reminds me of the old joke about an eternally joyful fellow who is always full of cheer, and the miserable people grouse, “He thinks he is happy, but he really is not.”

Why the Republicans are so incompetent in trumpeting this blockbuster economy is one of the great modern mysteries of life. Their unwillingness or incapacity to take credit for good times and defend the tax cuts that have helped families only lends credence to the curmudgeonly Krugmans of the world. If Republicans do not change their message soon, Trump may lose to one of the Democratic socialists, and then Americans will know what a real belly flop economy feels like. Finally, about 24 hours after the Krugman piece about Trumponomics flopping was published, the latest jobs report came out with 160,000 more jobs added. Whoops!

Stephen Moore is a distinguished visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and an economic consultant with FreedomWorks. He served as an adviser to the 2016 Donald Trump campaign. His latest book with Arthur Laffer is “Trumponomics: Inside the America First Plan to Revive Our Economy.”

[Biggirl]

I think the unsuccessful Dem debates and the horrible events of this week sealed 2020 for PDJT.

[Steely Tom]

What utter flakes and phonies these people are.

But a new crop of naive dummies comes up every year, so they stay in business, selling the same old line of hokum over and over again.

They’re like The Disney Channel. Pushing the same old plot lines and the same old gimmicks year after year, to an ever-changing group of little kids.

[rhombus10]

My guy at Fidelity said they are planning on recession in 2020. No doubt the big money aligned against Trump wants one.

[seowulf]

Why the Republicans are so incompetent in trumpeting this blockbuster economy is one of the great modern mysteries of life.

It's no mystery at all. As George Carlin said, "It's a big club, and you ain't in it." Neither is Trump. He (and you and I) are just not going to be accepted as any part of the solution. They know best even when your lying eyes tell you different.

Trump is having the booming economic recovery that Obama could have had if he weren't a red commie with bad ideas.

[Liz]

Trump has to be ecstatic. The Democrats are running people that are never going to beat him.
Dems entire cockamamie platform consists of every reason NOT to vote for a Democrap:

<><> forcing Normal Americans to work so that Dems can be "the good guys"

<><> Dems showering illegal aliens w/ taxpaid freebies buys a lot of votes.

<><> Democraps want the US in obeisance to the dictates of the transnational global elite at the UN;

<><> these elites demand the US suck up to the few foreigners still traveling first class over the border;

<><> Americans must pay and pay to shower the Third World w/ billions for climate control to keep it a degree cooler.

============================================

CIRCA 2017---Barack Obama transfers $500m to Green Climate Fund to protect Paris deal last days in office;
That's Obama's second $500M withdrawn from State Dept using executive powers; bypassing congressional support.
Michael Slezak / Tue 17 Jan 2017 / Last modified on Wed 14 Feb 2018

Barack Obama has transferred a second $500m installment from the State Dept to the Green Climate Fund just three days before he leaves office. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP Barack Obama has heeded calls to help secure the future of the historic Paris agreement by transferring a second $500m instalment to the Green Climate Fund, just three days before he leaves office. The fund was a key aspect of the Paris agreement signed in 2015, which aims to keep global warming “well below” 2C and aspires to keep warming to 1.5C. Established in 2010, it is financed by wealthy countries and used to assist developing countries with adaptation and mitigation. It was widely seen as a key measure to bring both rich and poor countries to the negotiating table. The US committed to transferring $3bn to the fund. The new instalment leaves $2bn owing, with the incoming president, Donald Trump, expected to cease any further payments.

=====================================

The $billion that made a short cut thru numbered accounts in a French Polynesian bank? (smirk)

[research99]

Low growth in the early 1980’s was a result of 18% interest rates set by the Federal Reserve of Paul Volcker (a 1979 Carter nominee).

Higher growth in the mid-1980’s was also a result of Federal Reserve policies, including increases in the money supply.

What did Reagan have to do with that? He pressured Volcker in mid-1982, but that was about it.

[MuttTheHoople]

Why the Republicans are so incompetent in trumpeting this blockbuster economy is one of the great modern mysteries of life.

Because they despise Trump, and by extension, us Normals, as much as the Left-wing mass-shooting party The Democrats do...they just hope that they'll be left alone after we're all put onto the Cattle Cars.

[1Old Pro]

Why the Republicans are so incompetent in trumpeting this blockbuster economy is one of the great modern mysteries of life.

Being a Republican is like being a Mets or Cubs fan, just constant disappointments. Perhaps the most inept party known to man, they constantly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory all because they are afraid to stand up to the media.

[Hojczyk]

GOP is the useless party..they told us for thirty

years all they would do if they held everything...and they did nothing much..

They Hated Reagan and they hate Trump more..

The old southern democrats got Reagan tax cuts..not Dole and Bush

[Mr. Jeeves]

Perhaps the most inept party known to man...

If you start from the premise they are actually working for the Deep State to keep rightward opposition quiet and complacent, they suddenly look like geniuses.

[dp0622]

with growth rates that surged above 7 percent.

That was phenomenal.

Reagan was a GREAT president.

[Sam Gamgee]

I want to approach this from a fair and modest look at the facts. So I reject GDP growth as it does not account for population growth. In 2009, per capita GDP was 47648, and end of 2016 was 52234. Over 7 years that gives Obama a 1.5% growth per year. Rather surprised at that, as it didn’t appear from what I heard that there was any growth in his economy.

Mid 2019 and the number looks to be 55,100. Over 2.5 years that is 2.5% per year.

So not sure what to think about that. Better than Obama’s but not stellar.

Anyone have issue with my take?