Growth
Greater productivity is one of the two main drivers of growth; the other is an increase in the number of U.S. workers. Both have slowed in the past decade.
Economic growth was 2.3 percent in 2019, matching the average pace since the Great Recession ended a decade ago in the first year of Barack Obama’s eight-year presidency.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump boasted that his tax cut plan would boost annual growth to 4 percent a year — a brisk pace not seen since the late 1990s.
Instead, Trump is one of two presidents, along with Obama, since World War II not to have presided over a year of at least 3 percent growth.
Few economists think the economy will hit that target this year.
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Taxes
Most analysts do think Trump’s tax plan helped accelerate growth, just not the way he had promised.
“The Trump tax cuts were a sugar high that juiced the economy temporarily,” said Ryan Sweet, an economist at Moody’s Analytics.
It put more money in Americans’ pockets, boosting consumer spending.
The economy grew 2.9 percent in 2018, a healthy pace though the same as in 2015, the year before Trump’s election.
The administration had vowed, though, that the tax cuts would do more than just encourage Americans to shop more.
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Trade
Most economists partly blame the stall on Trump’s trade wars, particularly with China. The trade conflicts have left American companies much less certain about the economic outlook and reluctant to expand and invest. Business investment shrank in the final three quarters of last year.
Nor have Trump’s business tax cuts and deregulation made the economy more dynamic. The growth of new companies has remained anemic since the 2008 downturn.
Larger businesses continue to dominate many industries, from technology to retail to finance.
All this is occurring despite significant stimulus. Trump has assailed Fed Chairman Jerome Powell for not cutting rates more, though the Fed’s benchmark rate is now in a range of just 1.5 percent to 1.75 percent, a very low level historically and one that is considered stimulative.
Increased federal spending also has helped support the economy.
The Congressional Budget Office last week projected that the government’s deficit will top $1 trillion annually for the next decade.
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Jobs
Trump recently has highlighted what he calls a “blue collar boom,” pointing to solid wage gains for lower-paid workers and healthy hiring in construction and manufacturing. But manufacturing jobs barely grew last year as factories hunkered down in the midst of the trade wars. Since Trump’s inauguration, manufacturing jobs have grown more slowly than employment overall has.
“Everyone says the economy is going great guns, but that is everything except agriculture and manufacturing,” Goss said.
What’s more, most campaign battleground states in the Midwest, such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin, have lost factory jobs in the past year.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/sta...by-the-numbers
Dems need to hammer and keep hammering the economy and the deficit.
Trump cant lie his way around numbers, hell try but its easily provable.
Dont talk about borders, immigration, 2A, emissions .. talk and never stop talking about the economy and deficit.
Trumpers can scream but "lowest unemployment ever" ... but unemployment has been going down at a steady clip since Obama so really Trump was put on 3rd base for that. The farmer and manufacturing jobs havent been booming like Trump promised.
edit - this article is on the front page of Fox News but I bet $100 its off the first page by noon EST.