Coattail Accomplishments

I ran across this meme online a few weeks ago. Reading through it I literally laughed out loud. Now, I’m not Snopes, nor do I want to be, but from time to time I’ll probably use something like this as the inspiration for some thoughts and insight. In fact, Snopes has already done this meme. They go into each claim for accuracy and even provide some additional context. I have to admit, while I was not surprised, I was a little disappointed they got to it so quickly. I’m not going to go into all of these claims since Snopes already did, but there are several I would like to elaborate on. If you haven’t read the Snopes article, you should. It is a good place to start. I’ll even make it easy and give you a link, which is highly unusual for me.

All of these statements are basically true. However, several of them President Trump had little to do with and framing some of the others as an accomplishment is sort of a stretch. My first thought on this as a whole was that if I was someone who had not been engaged with the goings on of my country for a long time, these might sound really amazing. The truth is that the United States is doing pretty well, and has been, at least statistically, for a while.

The unemployment rate is 4.4%. That is really good; we are basically at full employment. Near the end of last year we even saw workers wages start to tick up a bit. If you didn’t know anything about history you’d think President Trump was a miracle worker, but let me take you back a little bit. Let’s go way back to the turn of the century. When President Clinton left office the unemployment rate was 3.9%. When President Bush left office the unemployment rate was up to 7.3% and the economy was in a nose dive. Unemployment peaked at around 10% in 2009. After that, under President Obama, the unemployment rate continued a steady decline until reaching the previous 10 year low in November of 2016 of 4.6%. Our economy right now has some momentum and it has basically just continued to do the same thing it has been doing since 2010.

I would also like to point out that President Trump called the unemployment numbers fake many times during the election season. He looked at all the good results on labor economics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and straight-up called the results lies. Now his supporters are using those same statistics to claim he is doing a good job. Of course, one number doesn’t give a thorough understanding of how labor is doing, but the fact is that the BLS creates a very detailed report each month with many different measurements. The official unemployment rate that everyone focuses on is based on the number of unemployed people who are actively searching for work. This metric has been consistently calculated for decades, so it can be fairly compared over time.

Now I’m going to skip down to the budget surplus. The graphic specifies the month of April. It is true that there was a budget surplus in the month of April, but this is a very misleading statement. First of all, the month of April frequently has a surplus. Perhaps something happens in April that affects the revenue stream of the federal government? Oh yeah, April 15^th is the tax filing deadline for the previous calendar year. If you thought this meant we were are now running a surplus you were duped. The 2017 fiscal year-to-date deficit as reported by the monthly treasury statement of the US Department of the Treasury is $344 Billion in the red.

Additionally, up through the month of April we were still under a budget signed by President Obama. It wasn’t until Cinco De Mayo that President Trump signed his first short term spending bill to avert a government shutdown and he has yet to sign a full budget. This is totally normal as budgets are planned ahead of time. It is also relevant to point out that the federal deficit peaked at the end of President Bush’s term at $1.4 Trillion. After President Obama took over, it steadily declined to under $500 billion in 2015 before ticking up a little in 2016. I would also like to point out that the last time we had an annual surplus was at the end of President Clinton’s second term. It will be a year or two before we see the true impact of President Trump on the federal deficit. Time will tell.

The Dow Jones Industrial average has hit a new record! This is true. As I write this today it is even higher than in the graphic. However, this story is similar to the unemployment rate. Do you remember the last year that the Dow hit a record? It was 2016. What about before that? It was 2015. Ok, but what about before that? It was 2014. The Dow Jones Industrial average has hit a new record every year since 2013 when the stock exchanges fully recovered from the recession. After President Bush left office it bottomed out at about 6600 and has steadily increased every year since. Under President Obama we experienced one of the longest, steadiest upward trends of the stock markets ever. It continues today, and we really have yet to see the impact of President Trump. Let’s check back on this in a couple of years and see how President Trump’s policies have affected the markets. These things take time.

This graphic is claiming Neil Gorsuch as an accomplishment. Really? This has almost nothing to do with President Trump and mostly everything to do with Mitch McConnell. I’ve written about this before. Justice Scalia passed away over a year ago. President Obama nominated Merrick Garland, a centrist judge recommended by republicans. The republican leadership in the senate used completely unprecedented obstructionist tactics to block even having a hearing regarding his confirmation. Mitch McConnell then changed the senate rules in order to confirm the first appointee of President Trump with 100% of voting republicans and only 3 democratic votes. I am optimistic that Justice Gorsuch will display more humanity than Justice Scalia, for me it is difficult to imagine someone with less, but I fear this shady political maneuver will haunt us for decades.

Abandoning the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is not an accomplishment. To be honest, I don’t know enough about the TPP to make a claim whether it was a good deal or bad deal. In general, I think trade and competition are good things, but there are tons of details involved in these deals, and it may very well have been a terrible deal. Nonetheless, doing nothing is not an accomplishment. In fact, it is what republicans do best. That is not necessarily a jab at them. Some people would like to see the government do less, and they are the best at it. Now if Trump supporters could claim that he used his super-human powers of negotiation and created an amazing deal that benefited the United States and all of its pacific trading partners at the same time, then that would be an accomplishment. However, doing nothing is just that.

Increased border security and decreased illegal immigration is probably the only thing on this list that I would credit as an accomplishment of President Trump. It is also true that illegal immigration had been steadily declining the past several years, but not like this. The meme claims 40% and I’ve heard reputable claims of up to 70% reduction in illegal border crossings. Some of this has to do with the decline in children fleeing violence in Central America. Some of this has to do with the toxic social environment that President Trump has created for immigrants in the United States. There are even unprecedented numbers of illegal immigrants fleeing the United States and seeking refuge in Canada. And, some of this has to do with increasing the amount of border patrol. Honestly, I think the importance of this issue is overblown, but if you think border security is a big deal then count this as a win.

The last point on the graphic I’m going to comment on in the $100 million to Flint Michigan to repair their water system. The bill that did this was literally signed by President Obama in December of 2016. This sort of money takes a while to process through our bureaucracy so it didn’t actually get delivered until March. President Trump had nothing to do with the delivery and only another act of congress could have stopped it. To even claim this as a Trump accomplishment illustrates the level of embellishment that the author of the meme was willing to accept in order to achieve his/her goal of making President Trump look good. It also illuminates the level of ignorance the author expects out of his/her target audience; the Trump supporter. If you’re a Trump supporter this graphic should be offensive to you, because the author thinks you’re stupid.

This whole story can’t help but remind me of the last time we had a transition of power in the executive branch. In 2009 President Obama took office after the economically devastating Bush administration. Immediately, republicans were berating the brand new president for having a failing economy, multiple wars, and an enormous deficit. The Truth is that these things take time to change. While President Obama was far from perfect, by the end of his presidency the United States was doing better by just about every metric. There are a lot of things President Obama did to help get the economy rolling in the right direction; perhaps that will be the topic of another post. For now, just realize that large economies take some time to change course. The idea of immediate gratification, results and/or change is immature at best. Let’s check back in on the United States in a couple of years and see what President Trump’s administration has accomplished. At this time he is mostly just riding the coattails of his predecessor.