The Trump Presidency

I'm not comparing... i'm putting context to both of them. I'd much rather come in during a recession then at the end of the "recovery." He got 0% interest rates and trillions of dollars in QE financing to float the "recovery"

Meanwhile, nobody is saying Trump is presiding over the best economy in history. But I'll gladly remind you that the left set their hair on fire (per usual) at the prospect of tax cuts for corps. Those along with deregs have allowed businesses to invest like we haven't seen in decades, this is despite a rising interest rate environment and ensuing trade war.

Trump's spending is shameful and - in combination with Bush and Obama's spending - will lead to a day of financial reckoning.

The problem is, I do not know how to avoid this because the left literally will not allow a single cut anywhere. Any proposals of such, no matter how small, result in calls for Armageddon. It's a shame the republicans don't have the backbone to force them through, but they love their spending too.
 
Julio3000 said:
Hmmm. I’m not saying they are the same. Obama inherited the worst recession in living memory. He presided over an expansion of unprecedented length. Yes, it was relatively shallow, but it flies in the face of the narrative that Trump has created “the best economy in history” from whole cloth. He inherited a growing economy, healthy markets, and low unemployment. His policies have goosed things further. Celebrate each month of good numbers all you want, but don’t try to erase history and expect it to be taken seriously.

When Obama took office, we were in a catastrophic recession. There was a credit crisis and the housing sector was still in shambles. Several huge financial institutions had ceased to exist overnight. Two of the Big Three automakers were underwater. Unemployment was 7.8% and peaked at 10% during his third quarter in office. To compare those 8 years with Trump’s first 18 months is laughable.
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Obama also presided over a historically long period of quantitative easing. A tailwind that was turned into a headwind early in the current administration.

Aside from national defense, one of the few things the Constitution actually says the feds should be doing, where do the Trumpophobes want to cut spending?
 
sturg33 said:
The problem is, I do not know how to avoid this because the left literally will not allow a single cut anywhere. Any proposals of such, no matter how small, result in calls for Armageddon. It's a shame the republicans don't have the backbone to force them through, but they love their spending too.
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The argument for the Republican refusal to cut spending is that doing so immediately alienates the affected group of voters. This argument is both accurate and self evident, and results in the Left resorting to ever more ridiculous claims of what spending is necessary in order to buy the next group of votes.

The only solution I can imagine would be to remove the employer from the income tax system so that workers actually have to make the payments to the government themselves. This would result in a colossal shift in how Americans view government spending, and is less likely than Hillary having a sleepover at my house.
 
Jaw said:
The argument for the Republican refusal to cut spending is that doing so immediately alienates the affected group of voters. This argument is both accurate and self evident, and results in the Left resorting to ever more ridiculous claims of what spending is necessary in order to buy the next group of votes.

The only solution I can imagine would be to remove the employer from the income tax system so that workers actually have to make the payments to the government themselves. This would result in a colossal shift in how Americans view government spending, and is less likely than Hillary having a sleepover at my house.
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I've always thought that if Americans had to write a check at the end of the year for the income taxes in a lump sum, we'd see changes to our spending so fast we wouldn't be know what to do with ourselves

As you said - will never happen
 
I am seeing a news story critisizing Trump for sending 10 million from FEMA to ICE. Like that would have made any difference. 10 million for the government buys about 10 happy meals.
 
57Brave said:
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I'll copy and paste what I just posted in the economics thread.

Newly released data from the Census Bureau show median household income rising 1.8% in 2017. This follows increases of 3.2% in 2016 and 5.2% in 2015.

I'll also add that these numbers are not adjusted for inflation.
 
Yeah **** those rich people. Buying expensive yahts and ****. Thise things just materialize out of thin air and no one benefits but the buyer.
 
With respect to the median income data, I'll add a bit more information:

Real median incomes for full-time workers dropped 1.1% in 2017.

The household numbers I initially quoted look better for two reasons. First, they are not adjusted for inflation (as the real data are). Second, there was an increase in the number of multi-income earner households. So household data will look better than individual worker data.

I don't really have a partisan perspective on the 2017 numbers. The economy and income growth numbers don't turn on a dime depending on the occupant of the Oval Office at the start of a year. In fact, I would argue that income growth in 2017 is more a reflection of economic policies and conditions in place prior to 2017 than any changes in policy that occurred in 2017.

But if anyone wants to push a partisan perspective on these data, the one that is somewhat consistent with the facts and how the economy behaves should read something like this: Real income growth in 2017 was lousy and Obama is to blame for it.
 
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nsacpi said:
With respect to the median income data, I'll add a bit more information:

Real median incomes for full-time workers dropped 1.1% in 2017.

The household numbers I initially quoted look better for two reasons. First, they are not adjusted for inflation (as the real data are). Second, there was an increase in the number of multi-income earner households. So household data will look better than individual worker data.

I don't really have a partisan perspective on the 2017 numbers. The economy and income growth numbers don't turn on a dime depending on the occupant of the Oval Office at the start of a year. In fact, I would argue that income growth in 2017 is more a reflection of economic policies and conditions prior to 2017.
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I posted what I posted in response to 57... Not a defense of Trump or Obama.

I agree that the Trump economy basically starts in 2018
 
sturg33 said:
I posted what I posted in response to 57... Not a defense of Trump or Obama.

I agree that the Trump economy basically starts in 2018
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The one year lag is reasonable in trying to give credit/blame for an administration's policies. In this case, it is also consistent with 2018 being the year when the tax cuts/fiscal loosening started to be implemented. Of course some of the consequences of this will go well beyond 2020. The next administration will have to confront the consequences of a large fiscal stimulus late in the business cycle that results in higher inflation and higher interest rates. This is why I often make the point that populism tends to be popular in its initial phase, but that the subsequent cleanup from the binge is not so much fun.
 
nsacpi said:
The one year lag is reasonable in trying to give credit/blame for an administration's policies. In this case, it is also consistent with 2018 being the year when the tax cuts/fiscal loosening started to be implemented. Of course some of the consequences of this will go well beyond 2020. The next administration will have to confront the consequences of a large fiscal stimulus late in the business cycle that results in higher inflation and higher interest rates. This is why I often make the point that populism tends to be popular in its initial phase, but that the subsequent cleanup from the binge is not so much fun.
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2017 deficit was $666 billion
 
nsacpi said:
correct and in FY 2018 it will be close to 900B and go up quite a bit more in FY 2019.

The FY 2017 deficit is Obama's and the previous Congress' baby. The ones for FY2018 and beyond belong to Trump.
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I am aware... but 2018 budget isn't due to "populism"

It's due to our government being drunk on spending for a couple decades now. This is not sustainable. Without a change, we are ****ed.

And to be clear, the day of reckoning is not due to tax cuts. It's due to spending. How do I know that? The deficits added up to $8.4T over last 10 years, before the tax cuts ever got announced.

But of course we're smart enough to know that the day of reckoning will be blamed on tax cuts and capitalism.
 
sturg33 said:
I am aware... but 2018 budget isn't due to "populism"

It's due to our government being drunk on spending for a couple decades now. This is not sustainable. Without a change, we are ****ed.

And to be clear, the day of reckoning is not due to tax cuts. It's due to spending. How do I know that? The deficits added up to $8.4T over last 10 years, before the tax cuts ever got announced.

But of course we're smart enough to know that the day of reckoning will be blamed on tax cuts and capitalism.
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Perhaps my view of what constitutes populism is idiosyncratic. But I consider a large tax cut unmatched by spending cuts at a mature phase of the business cycle where unemployment is very low by historical standards to be an example of economic populism.

But you're right it could be called others things as well. Being drunk. Being irresponsible. etc etc

I would argue that there is a difference between a deficit path where there deficit is around 3% of GDP and one where it is 5% of GDP. The change happened as a result of policies adopted in 2017. A deficit path around 3% of GDP is a bit too high, but 5% is definitely going to be a problem. Good luck to whoever has to clean up that mess, especially since it will also coincide with higher inflation and higher interest rates.
 
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That still doesn't address whether you believe the problem is spending too much or taxing too little.

As for someone having to clean up the deficit while inflation and interest rates rise, perhaps that type of emergency is needed to create the political will for spending cuts. Otherwise we'll be printing off a few trillion dollar coins to pay our debts sometime in the next couple of decades.
 
Jaw said:
That still doesn't address whether you believe the problem is spending too much or taxing too little.
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If I were crowned philosopher king I suspect I would bring down spending more than I would raise taxes. But my approach would actually be more detail oriented and would center on whether various kinds of spending were producing enough results to justify their continuation. As a rough rule we should have a deficit that is fairly small on average. No deficit or a surplus during good times and a big deficit during bad times. That's common sense. But it took Keynes to provide a coherent explanation.
 
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