I have to admit, I am on social media quite a bit. Not that there’s anything really wrong with that. I see my interactions with strangers from around the globe as my contribution to the new town square. I’m particularly interested in the comments on stories published on news sites like our local newspaper and television stations by reputable journalists.
For some reason, the stories pertaining to Donald Trump tend to raise a particularly heated defense by his devotees who usually retreat to, “We put up with the last four years, so you can put up with these.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt refers to “the mess that was created under Joe Biden and ... [the] economic disaster...” Trump inherited. It would be unconscionable that she would lie to Trump’s supporters, but let’s examine this “economic disaster” to see what exactly this mess was that needed to be fixed.
Could it be the speed of the recovery from the economic meltdown Trump’s abysmal failure of a response to the pandemic left? According to literally any reputable source, the Biden strategy pulled us out of a looming depression better and faster than almost anyone else. Even the Brookings Institute concluded the U.S. recovery far outpaced any of its G10 peer countries, so it couldn’t be that.
Could it be economic growth? By the second year of the Biden administration, the United States fully recovered all pre-pandemic GDP losses and continued to far surpass pre-pandemic levels, so it couldn’t be that.
Could it be post-pandemic inflation? The inflation rate in the U.S. was higher than the Federal Reserve would like to see, but the United States had the lowest inflation rate of any country in the G7 and most other developed countries, and wage growth of 5% outpaced inflation of 2.5% by the end of Biden’s term, so it couldn’t be that.
Could it be unemployment or job growth? Unemployment began to decline from its peak near 15% as Trump’s administration came to a end, but following the implementation of President Biden’s recovery initiatives, unemployment reached record lows of 3.9% six years earlier than CBO projections. The past four years have been the longest stretch of continuous private sector employment gains of any president in U.S. history. Twice as many jobs were created in the first 10 months of Biden’s administration than the past four Republican presidents combined. So it couldn’t be that.
Could it be a decline in the manufacturing sector? According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute, not only did Trump fail to curb offshoring during his first term, but, “...the Trump administration’s overall weak trade agenda” and mismanagement of the pandemic “...has wiped out much of the last decade’s job gains in U.S. manufacturing.” It found that nearly 1,800 factories were lost between 2016 and 2018 — before the pandemic — and the manufacturing trade deficit grew in each of those years, so Trump’s claims about “reshoring” were lies. Biden’s recovery efforts, on the other hand, added more than 800,000 manufacturing jobs, and almost 16 million jobs in total, with more yet to come if Trump doesn’t completely gut the infrastructure investments, so it couldn’t be that.
Could it be the deficit? Donald Trump increased the deficit more per year than any president in history, rising from $439 billion when he took office to more than $1 trillion when he left.
The U.S. economy expanded every month under Biden, fewer people were uninsured, violent crime rates plummeted, crude oil production increased to the highest levels ever, illegal border crossing apprehensions and deportations both increased, corporate profits were up almost 40%, the number of people requiring food stamps decrease by more than half a million, and the S&P grew by well over 40%, so it couldn’t be any of those.
So, someone please enlighten me. What was this economic mess of which you speak?
Elliot Namay, of Charleston, owns PC Specialist Inc.
