I know who gets blamed when things go bad!
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Over the years that I have watched the political rumblings in this country, everyone takes credit when things are going great. But when they turn sour, it’s the president that gets the blame.
And, it started last month with the Coronaviris that has spread from China all over the world and President Trump is getting the blame. A New York daily paper calls it the “Trump Virus.”
So, also last month former President Barack Obama tweeted the following, “Eleven years ago, near the bottom of the worst recession in generations, I signed the Recovery Act, paving the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in American history.”
So, Obama is taking credit for policies for the recovery of the country’s economy from the financial downturn and recession that occurred more than ten years ago.
President Trump, who quickly responded to Obama’s tweet, saying; “did you hear the latest con job? President Obama is now trying to take credit for the Economic Boom taking place under the Trump Administration. He had the weakest recovery since the Great Depression, despite Zero Fed Rate and massive quantitative easing.”
Robert Romano, of the Americans for Limited Government, put it this way. “This naturally led to a news cycle debating whether President Trump could take credit for any of the economic successes being seen right now—sustained growth, the lowest unemployment in 50 years, rising wages, ect.
“But why can Obama take credit for his first few years in office but not Trump? Here’s the truth.
“Incumbents are always judged by the present state of the economy, it’s how American people hold politicians accountable. Just ask Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush if they think the economy had any bearing on their political fortunes. Both had recessions occur during their first terms in office, which turned out to be their last. No amount of blaming their predecessors would have made a difference.
“If the economic were to have entered a recession during President Trump’s watch, recall the headlines from last summer when short term interest rates briefly inverted with long term rates, you can bet that President Trump would have been blamed for it.
“It stands to reason then that with the economy doing so well, and Americans becoming wealthier, that Trump will undoubtedly receive the lion’s share of the credit when the American people go to vote in November. Voters will likely point to the President’s policies on tax cuts, deregulation and America first trade with new fair and reciprocal trade deals with Mexico, Canada, China, South Korea and Japan as playing a key role.
“Obama didn’t build that.
“At this point in 2012, the U.S. economy had not produced a single job during former President Obama’s administration from when he took office in January 2009. It was still down 568,000 jobs, and yet Obama would go on to win the 2012 election.
“Was it because Americans blamed Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, for the state of the economy and the 8 million jobs that had been lost in the Great Recession?
“Possibly, but the fact is, as tepid as the recovery following the Great Recession were, by 2012, the charts were pointed in the right direction. From the low of 138 million Americans employed in December 2009, by January 2012, it as up to 141.5 million Americans with jobs, a jump of 3.5 million.
“Comparatively, since January 2017 when President Trump took office, the economy has produced 6.5 million jobs and unemployment remains at a 50-year low of 3.5 percent.”
“The biggest gains have been made by working age adults, with labor participation for prime working age 25-54-year-olds jumping from 81.5 percent when Trump took office to 83.1 percent today, representing an additional two million prime working age Americans in the economy than would have been had participation remained the same. That same participation rate for 25-to-54-year-olds had dropped every single year during the Obama administration until it finally bottomed at 80.7 percent in 2015. There was some recovery in 2016, and then most of the gains occurred starting in 2017 to present.
“The fact is the American people will be judging President Trump on the present state of the economy when they go to the polls in November, not former President Obama.
“The only question that matters is as Ronald Reagan once put it: Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
Thanks for reading! ~Carlton