Letter to the editor: How has the economy really performed?
Silverthorne
A recent letter to the editor opined that President Donald Trump deserved to be reelected based on the performance of the economy. I apologize up front for all these statistics. It’s the only way to show the real data in a factual manner.
Annual percent gross domestic product growth:
- Obama’s last four years: 2.2% average
- Trump’s last three years: 2.5% average
- 2017: 2.2%
- 2018: 2.9% (first year of tax cuts)
- 2019: 2.3%
Source: World Bank
Average monthly job creation:
- Obama’s last four years: 215,750 average
- Trump’s last three years: 198,000 average
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
“So we’re at 3.3% GDP. I see no reason why we don’t go to 4%, 5% and even 6%.” — Trump, Dec. 6, 2017
What was the cost of the jump in 2018 annual GDP to 2.9%? According to the Congressional Budget Office, new estimates in January project a $1 trillion annual deficit for 2020, which is 4.6% of GDP.
This is much worse than the Congressional Budget Office estimate in June 2017 of 3.6%, before Trump’s tax cut. That’s an increase of 27.8% over prior estimates. All this is before the effects caused by COVID-19. I specifically left out any 2020 year-to-date data, which would be horrid. The pandemic would negatively affect whoever was in the White House regardless of party.
Look at the numbers. Do they argue convincingly that Trump deserves reelection?
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