Donald Trump hits a wall
If there’s anything you thought Donald Trump might be telling the truth about, without following much of the news at all, it would be the economy. Hardly a day goes by when he doesn’t tweet about how great it is – somehow due to his administration’s own policies, when the reality is that it’s not that great and only appears to be stable despite his policies. It’s why he had an incoherent meltdown this week when President Obama casually decided to remind everyone that the recovery began under his administration.
While he likes to take credit for the stock market and therefore believes everyone else in the country is thriving because of this, a few people happen to disagree with him. Some of them belong to his own Council of Economic Advisers who recently announced the economy is on track for just 2.4% growth in 2020. For reference, that’s nowhere near the 5-6% growth they were promising would happen when the Republican-led Congress signed Trump’s tax cuts into law at the end of 2017.
The council is optimistic that growth could continue into 2022 (though not as much as 5%), but that would only be possible if the administration were to take new measures – not just more rollback of regulations, but also immigration reform and new trade deals – two areas where Trump has been stagnant for most of his term.
Even if he wanted to do it, much of this legislation would have a hard time passing through Congress, with Mitch McConnell blocking nearly everything passed in the House. If nothing is done, growth is on track to slow down next year. Trump likes to lash out at Democrats on Twitter, who he says are his enemies, but in this case, it could be uncompromising Republicans like McConnell who prove to be his worst enemy.
James Sullivan is the assistant editor of Brain World Magazine and an advocate of science-based policy making