Vox - The truth about the Trump economy, explained

[TomCADem]

Excellent article that points out that the real change in the Trump economy, which largely continues if not lags the rate of growth under President Obama, is that conservative media is now celebrating the same fundamentals as signs of a great economy when just a few years ago the RW media was saying that the economy was failing under President Obama.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/30/16945146/trump-economic-record

Hillary Clinton struggled to articulate a boosterish case for the American economy during the 2016 campaign in part because of lingering patches of labor market weakness but largely because progressives have a more fundamental critique of the US economic situation.

The United States is the only high-income country to have millions of citizens who lack health insurance, has a relative child poverty rate that’s off the charts by the standards of other developed countries, has no guaranteed paid parental leave or paid vacation, and remains one of the world’s highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases even as the world hurtles toward an environmental crisis. Under those circumstances, efforts to pitch the notion that “America is already great” end up falling flat not just — or even especially — with skeptical swing voters but with Democrats’ own base that yearns for transformative change to aspects of the American welfare state and of American political economy.

Republicans have no such qualms. The Republican Party donor class is very, very excited about high stock market valuations (which lead directly to huge payouts for top executives) and about corporate income tax cuts (which lead to high stock market valuations, and thus huge payouts for top executives) and thus are very glad to embrace the narrative that all is now well with the American economy. That gives an incumbent Republican presiding over decent growth an easy, uncomplicated pitch to make — things are good now, and they are good thanks to me.

It’s largely forgotten now, but back during the mid-aughts (a time of more rapid wage growth than what we saw in 2017, incidentally), it was commonplace in conservative circles to proclaim that we were living through a “Bush Boom” touched off by his game-changing tax cuts and deregulation. That story, obviously, eventually ended in tears, as a poorly supervised financial system channeled inequitably shared growth into an unsustainable pyramid of debt that eventually collapsed. But they were good times while they lasted.

[underpants]

1. Can't Rec this enough. Excellent article.

Bookmarking

[TomCADem]

2. Bottom Line: Its Not the Trump Effect, It Is the Fox News Effect

Under President Obama, even as the economy recovered, RW media (as well as Democrats and progressives), asked what about the working class and poor?

Under President Trump, RW media totally ignores working class and poor and accuses Democrats of being partisan when they talk about things like the working class and middle class not benefitting from tax cuts or losing their healthcare.

[underpants]

3. And no one is reminded of the tax cut for 97% of us in A. R. R A.

Or the Social Secutiry holiday (2011-2012) that Obama went along with over cries from the left. Both were very efffective parts of the recovery.

I literally heard this on local talk radio last week. I know it's talk radio but try finding any mention of it in recent news articles about Trump's tax scam.