The
Conservative Review isn't playing along. Good for them. Anyone who brings up Trump's exploding debt and flagging economy are immediately mocked by his obedient Trumpsters, but fortunately there are still some Conservatives who are not willing to lie and spin for him.
But I know, I know. The Trumpsters don't care.
Trump can’t be both the president of growth and the president of debt
Earlier today, the Bureau of Economic Analysis announced that the economy had grown just 2.1 percent during the second quarter of this year (ending June 30). It also revised Q4 of 2018 down to just 1.1 percent, which now means that growth during the 12 months ending Q4 of 2018 was only 2.5 percent, not 3 percent as previously thought. This means that the U.S. economy has now gone 14 years without a year-over-year growth of 3 percent. It’s been 19 years since we’ve hit 4 percent, which was during 1997-2000.
While the numbers don’t portend a coming recession, it is highly unusual for us to go for 16 consecutive months with unemployment below 4 percent and 43 months below 5 percent, yet never attain 3 or 4 percent annual GDP growth. In fact, that has never happened before. During the late 1990s, the unemployment rate ranged from 5.3 percent to 3.9 percent – not even as good as today’s 3.7 percent – yet GDP growth was over 4 percent. Ditto for the late 1960s, when we saw years of 6 percent growth. During the mid 1980s, we saw this growth even with higher unemployment rates.
The debt is not just a problem for future generations in terms of a fiscal cost that will be borne by taxpayers. The exclusive focus on the future is what has fostered the Louis XV mentality of “after me, the deluge.” Let’s face it, we are a nation that doesn’t care about the future of our children. What is missing from the discussion is that the debt is permanently weighing down economic growth now.
Let’s peek into the numbers behind today’s topline GDP report. GDP comprises personal consumption expenditures, gross private domestic investment, government spending, and net exports. Seventy percent of the equation is consumption, and the robust 4.3 percent growth in consumption this quarter is a big part of what is keeping us even at 2.1 percent growth. This is not artificial and is good news. Consumption is a sign of a healthy job market, with more people earning money, as well as the tax cuts putting more cash in people’s pockets to spend. No matter whether our economy is fully free market or quasi-socialist, whenever there is more money in people’s pockets, these numbers will go up. We are now in a boom period, and the numbers are good.
But what else is propping up the number? Government spending! Gross government spending, which accounts for about 17.5 percent of the GDP pie, spiked 5 percent. Non-defense spending rose by 15.9 percent!
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I guess I'm missing why you are trying to make this an all-Trump thing. Maybe you're not aware that economies are mainly the domain of Congress? Further, when pointing fingers at the debt, my first thought is the idiot Congress who in 2006 caused the spiraling banking crisis through the Todd-Frank bill, then Obama coming in and rather than letting bad actors on Wall Street fail and reorganize, spent trillions bailing out the big boys too big to fail while letting the little guy twist in the wind.
We didn't get to 21-22 trillion overnight. When Obama took office in 2008, we were only at about 9 trillion. It took Barack to put us at 19 trillion.
Now if you want to see that as a Trump deflection, knock yourself out, but the damage is already done.
It's the Dems' fault.
Got it.
Anyone else?
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Glad you finally see that. No one was talking about a debt crisis until Obumma ran our debt up more than all previous administrations combined. That doesn't mean the GOP haven't had a hand in it, but the very title of your OP shows you have an agenda rather than seeking actual facts and are now just looking for excuses to justify it.
At least GW had a good excuse, he had a war dumped on his lap with the biggest terrorist attack in history. Most of Obumma's 10 trillion disappeared down the pockets of his crony friends, and to this day, the democrats still try to run the debt out of control by refusing to deal with the immigration crisis, which costs us 10-20 billion a year in direct and indirect costs.
At least Trump is trying to attack the issue, not only is he seeking to remove 3 million off the SNAP program who really don't need it, he just had another major victory in Guatemala.
Trump administration, Guatemala sign pact barring migrants from claiming asylum in U.S.
What are democrats working on? They want to air a Godfather movie clip during the trial of Roger Stone.
Prosecutors ask to air clip from 'The Godfather Part II' during Roger Stone trial
And Uncle Jerry is still working on that greatest of all issues, wanting to impeach Trump out of office for not cooperating in his own railroading on a matter we all now know he was not even guilty of in the first place.
Nadler: We’re Pursuing a De Facto Impeachment Inquiry
Lie #1
"No one was talking about a debt crisis until Obumma ran our debt..."
Not true. Democrats were complaining about the debt and Bush's growing deficits when he took Clinton's
$18 billion deficit and turned it into a
$1017 billion deficit, adding $4.9 trillion to the debt,
an 86% increase. The response from right was .... "Deficits don't matter." -- Well, yes, they do, as they add to the debt.
Lie #2
"Obumma ran our debt up more than all previous administrations combined."
Not True. The debt was $10.6 trillion when Obama became president and it was $19.9 trillion.
"More than all previous administrations combined" would have required the debt to reach $21.3 trillion in order for that to be true. In reality, a foreign concept to you rightards, is that the debt
increased 88% (not 100% as you foolishly repeated). Not much more than Bush's 86%. Only unlike Obama, Bush wasn't handed the worst economy in our lifetimes, which greatly contributed to the debt.
Lie #3
"At least GW had a good excuse, he had a war dumped on his lap with the biggest terrorist attack in history."
Not true. That was about a $1 trillion hit to our economy, which recovered from that by 2003. The war in Iraq, which was very costly, had nothing to do with 9.11 as Iraq was not involved. And the decision to invade Iraq rests on the shoulders of Bush himself who decided to invade when he didn't really have to. But as we all heard, there just weren't enough good targets in Afghanistan.
Lie #4
"Most of Obumma's 10 trillion..."
Not true. The debt under Obama, even if you want to attribute every penny though we were still operating under the continuing budget resolution Bush signed early on and the economy was in the crapper when Obama took over, is $9.3 trillion, not $10 trillion.
Lie #5
"Most of Obumma's 10 trillion disappeared down the pockets of his crony friends"
Not true. Most of the debt was due to the Great Recession Bush dumped on Obama.
Like I always say ... if conservatives didn't lie, they'd have absolutely nothing to say.
