Barack Obama became the first President since the end of WWII to go a single year without averaging 3% economic growth, and the sub-par growth was noticeable (especially compared to the boom we’re in now). For as much as Obama liked to brag about “saving America from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression,” he did so at an exceptionally slow pace.
In fact, ahead of signing his trillion dollar stimulus bill, Obama’s administration predicted doomsday if it weren’t passed. According to their estimates, without a stimulus, unemployment would top 9%, but with one, it would never pass 8%. In reality, the stimulus was passed, and unemployment topped 10%.
And that’s not even the most embarrassing economic prediction made in the past decade. During one of the 2016 presidential debates, Hillary Clinton predicted that Donald Trump’s tax plan would cost 3.5 million jobs. (RELATED: Hillary Predicted Trump Tax Cuts Would Kill 3.5 Million Jobs). Anyone that’s taken a look at the unemployment rate knows that it has gone in only one direction since tax reform was passed; downward.
And with that record low unemployment comes record high economic growth. The latest GDP figures are in
According to CNBC, “Gross domestic product grew at a solid 4.1 percent pace in the second quarter, its best pace since 2014, boosting hopes that the economy is ready to break out of its decade-long slumber. That’s the fastest rate of the growth since the 4.9 percent in the third quarter of 2014 and the third-best growth rate since the Great Recession. In addition to the strong second quarter, the Commerce Department revised its first-quarter reading up from 2 percent to 2.2 percent.”
Growth tends to be higher in the third and fourth quarter of the year (the forth specifically due to holiday sales), so a year of 3%+ economic growth could very well be on the way.
Voya Investment Management’s senior market strategy Karyn Cavanaugh predicted 3% growth overall for the year on CNBC – and that was during an appearance back in April, before the spectacular figures that came in today. “We have high expectations already… The tax cuts are really going to kick in, I think 3% is in the bag for 2018, and I don’t think we’re going to drop off in growth, I think it’s going to get even better.”
Now, juxtapose that with what the pundits and media outlets had predicted when Trump promised a return to 3% growth:
Of course, that’s just a minor sampling! Every liberal pundit and their mother predicted that the economy would collapse under a Trump presidency. That clearly has not happened. Unfortunately, these same pundits haven’t had much trouble finding other policies to play Chicken Little in response to.
