As everyone except Donald Trump knows, the president is trailing his challenger, Joe Biden, in national polls and in most battleground states. Polling on the issues shows Mr. Trump losing on nearly every issue except handling the economy, where the two men are essentially in a dead heat.
If Mr. Trump has any chance of prevailing, it is because roughly half of Americans still believe in his ability to manage the economy. Is that belief justified? The short answer is no.
Yes, it’s true that the pre-Covid economy was in fine shape. Mr. Trump was naturally crowing about that, and claiming credit. But was the strong economy of February 2020 a result of his policies? ’Fraid not.
The Trump administration attempted only two major economic-policy initiatives. The first was the failed attempt to repeal ObamaCare—without offering anything to replace it. That terrible idea ended with John McCain’s dramatic Senate vote. Sadly, however, it is still being litigated in the courts.
The second big initiative was the tax cuts, which passed in December 2017. With typical braggadocio, Mr. Trump claimed his tax cuts were the largest in history—which, as a share of gross domestic product, was nowhere close to the truth. That said, the tax cuts were large, though highly regressive.
Did they give the economy a big boost? Judge for yourself. The nearby chart shows the downward path of the national unemployment rate from the time unemployment started to decline after the Great Recession (November 2010) to right before the Covid-19 catastrophe slammed the economy (February 2020). Unemployment did trail down, from over 9% to a wonderfully low 3.5% rate. As I said, the macroeconomy was in excellent shape before the pandemic hit. But can you see any break in the trend when Mr. Trump replaced Barack Obama? Or when the tax cuts took effect in 2018?
Data on real GDP growth tell a similarly boring story. Over the 12 pre-Covid “Trump quarters,” 2017-19, the annual growth rate averaged 2.5%. You have to be pretty Trumpy to call that a sharp jump from the preceding 12 “Obama quarters,” when GDP growth averaged—wait for it—2.4%. Mr. Trump, who promised much faster growth, is an economic wizard only in his own mind.
The unemployment graph ends in February 2020 because the roof caved in the next month. It would be patently unfair to blame the pandemic’s arrival in the U.S. on Mr. Trump. But it is totally fair to blame him for the federal government’s disgraceful public-health performance since then.
There are doubtless many reasons why the U.S. has suffered about 640 deaths per million (so far) while Germany has suffered about 120. But much of the explanation is simple: They have a leader, in Angela Merkel; we have Donald Trump.
Again, from the WSJ.
Seems they're not exactly the cheerleaders for Trump he'd like them to be.
Well, he still has the NYPost, which has been printing false and planted stories about politicians since Alexander Hamilton used it for that purpose.
Poll
5 (45.5%)