Trump Claims Credit for the Economy. Not So Fast, Says Obama.
WASHINGTON — The economy is doing quite well, thank you very much, and the president would naturally like to take credit. Both of them.
Barely a day passes without President Trump boasting about the growing economy, claiming with a mix of hyperbole and fact that it is “booming like never before.” But former President Barack Obama finds all the Trumpian chest-thumping more than a little grating, given that the “booming” started on his watch.
The economic contest between the 44th and 45th presidents went public in recent days when Mr. Obama expressed his irritation and Mr. Trump fired back. At stake are more than ordinary political bragging rights. Central to Mr. Obama’s historical legacy is the economy’s recovery after its plummet to the brink of a new Great Depression. And central to Mr. Trump’s current political standing is its further expansion.
Never mind that the nation’s economic fortunes depend on more than the occupant of the Oval Office and his policies, driven as well by interest rates, technological innovation and the health of the global economy — trends beyond the control of any president. Voters and historians nonetheless assign credit and blame to presidents for the state of the economy. When it comes to economics, presidents would rather be remembered as Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton than Herbert Hoover.
With midterm elections coming, the economy is Mr. Trump’s trump card, the most unalloyed note of success in an otherwise herky-jerky presidency. Plagued by scandal, investigations, dysfunction in the West Wing and stalemate on Capitol Hill, Mr. Trump is making the surge of new jobs and business activity his most powerful argument for keeping Congress in Republican hands. Even with his own popularity low, consumer confidence and voter faith in the economy are on the rise.
“The Trump economy so far has reached a real inflection point,” Larry Kudlow, the president’s national economics adviser, said in an interview on Sunday. “Trump has ended the war on business and he’s ended the war on success, and he’s been urging people to go out and start a new company and go back to work.”
After a long period of silence, Mr. Obama expressed his exasperation on Friday. “When you hear how great the economy’s doing right now, let’s just remember when this recovery started,” he said in a speech kicking off a midterm campaign blitz. “When you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers, suddenly Republicans are saying it’s a miracle. I have to kind of remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/09/us/politics/trump-obama-economy.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
the record!
As a .. not lying about it like the Russian Ass.
