Trump and GOP promised economic growth much better than Obama's. That's not what happened

[DonViejo]

PUBLISHED AN HOUR AGO | UPDATED MOMENTS AGO

John Harwood
@JOHNJHARWOOD

KEY POINTS

Throughout the 2016 campaign and since, the president and his party have vowed to kick-start tepid Obama-era economic growth.

New government data this morning show that Trump, too, has failed to reach the 3 percent promised land, according to one major metric.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis measured 2018 growth at 2.8 percent, below the 2.9 percent Obama enjoyed in 2015.

For the rest of the president’s term, economic forecasters agree, that number will decline.

President Trump’s central claim about his economic policies officially crashed into reality today.

Throughout the 2016 campaign and since, the president and his party have vowed to kick-start tepid Obama-era economic growth. Specifically, they insisted tax-cuts and deregulation would return growth to its post-World War II average of 3 percent – a level, candidate Trump said derisively, that Obama became “the first president in modern history” never to reach in a single year.

New government data this morning show that Trump, too, has failed to reach the 3 percent promised land, according to one major metric. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis measured 2018 growth at 2.9 percent, matching the peak Obama enjoyed in 2015.

Instead of annual 2018 growth, the White House emphasized a different growth measure comparing growth from the 4th quarter of 2017 to the 4th quarter of 2018.

By that measure, the economy grew 3.1 percent. But Obama, too, reached 3 percent growth on a four quarter basis four different times.

more
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/trumps-economic-policies-failed-to-deliver-promised-3percent-growth-in-2018.html

[irresistable]

1. That is so unfair.

Can't we give trickle-down economics just a few more decades to work before we give up on it?