Current Events > Was Trump really "good for the economy" before the pandemic?

(+) Yeah! (+)

This is always the biggest defense I hear for him, even from my own dad. But is it actually true?

Seems to me hes actually built up massive debt, which doesnt sound that good for the economy

---

No he was awful. Road the coattails of what Obama did and took full credit for it.

Not really no

---

No, he just managed not to fuck up Obama's economy too much. Ballooning the deficit i probably the biggest difference between the 2.

---

Id like some specific data if possible to use against these people

---

DoctorPiranha3 posted...

No he was awful. Road the coattails of what Obama did and took full credit for it.

What did Obama do to stimulate the economy?
Wallstreet bailout? Is that what people are referring to, as if Trump or anyone else wouldn't have bailed out big banks

---

SSJCAT posted...

Id like some specific data if possible to use against these people

Theyll just shout FAKE NEWS to anything that goes against their narrative. Theres no reasoning with these creatures.

deregulated everything which may have helped the economy while sacrificing any kind of social or environmental progress we made

but the way he completely botched the pandemic is the absolute worst thing that could happen to the economy. If he actually acted properly there wouldn't have been as many deaths. His only reason was that he didn't want to scare investors and scare people into slowing the economy down because his election chances rode on the economy. That bit him in the ass. Even now he's still flirting with disaster, downplaying masks, encouraging people to go out.

Trump was great for jobs

Problem is the jobs were all at McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell

---

bump. plz halp

---

No. Rode Obama's coattails on recovery, made tax cuts that put us into further debt, destroyed our relationship with trade partners

---

SSJCAT posted...

Id like some specific data if possible to use against these people

They dont care about real data.

---

Ving_Rhames posted...

They dont care about real data.

okay but i do and would like to have a better understanding when making an argument

---

An important point is that he was good for the stock market, but this in no way reflects the health of the economy and in Trumps case actively was against the interests of a wide majority of the country.

---

So you may remember that one of the big things the Senate did. Maybe the only big thing the Senate did was pass a huge revamp of the tax code.

this tax code was supposed to help oh, if you believe it every one, before the tax code change I was getting about $7,000 back on my income taxes. That amount shrank two less than $3,000 the first year of the Trump tax plan that went into effect.

I'm solidly middle-class with some basic Investments.

Those numbers are absolutely real and I see no reason why at the end of this year I won't get a significantly smaller return that I got previously. You may remember that after the Senate passed that tax plan many of them quit the Senate and took private-sector jobs. The fact is that people like Trump and a Republican Senate are out to help people who are very very rich because then they re-enter private life and need a job at these big companies that they helped.

---

Good, and it made have stayed so if they didnt now to social pressure and shut down the economy. Which inevitably led to high deaths on top of bad economy which is a nightmare scenario for any country.

---

---

Trump was excellent for large service industry corporations, but in practical terms that didn't mean a lot for you or me unless you were looking for a low-waged job in one of those industries. More than anything he was riding the post-depression wave of the end of the Obama administration. I know that's a universal copout answer for gains under every republican president basically ever and a shield for every dem president's losses ever but it's pretty well substantiated this time around.

he campaigned on being good for us markets in a more widescale way though and that didn't actually pan out. farmers were a big target audience (and always are for republicans) in 2016 and his work with that sector has essentially been crippling it with his ineffectual trade disputes and subsidizing them with bailout programs. the result has been middling

https://time.com/5885962/trump-farmers-election-climate/

he also campaigned on domestic manufacturing and that has been a confusing mess of failed projects and mild successes that add up to less than his predecessor. i know you said before the pandemic, but the pandemic has by and large washed the gains he made away

https://www.statesman.com/news/20201001/fact-check-did-trump-overstate-manufacturing-job-gains-during-debate


---

I didn't see prices drop like economists claim.

---

"It was really Obama who made the economy good for those 4 years."

---

you come in on a massive upward trend, then cut taxes and slash regulations, and of course shit will continue to go up for a while. thing is, as has been shown before, when you cut taxes and slash regulations the system loses stability and spirals out of control as the businesses that are only out to make more money start fucking the system over to make more money...

---

People living in corrogated tin huts in the wheat belt congratulating him for the stock market, lool

---

Bananana posted...

An important point is that he was good for the stock market, but this in no way reflects the health of the economy and in Trumps case actively was against the interests of a wide majority of the country.

Pretty much this. While some of what he did was certainly good for the stock market, that typically isn't going to affect the person you're talking to too much. Unless they have a shitload of money and assets tied up in it (which not too many middle class or below people do) than that boom is really just going to help the already wealthy which of course is just creating bigger wealth gaps between classes.

---

DoctorPiranha3 posted...

No he was awful. Road the coattails of what Obama did and took full credit for it.

---

I mean, setting aside tariffs, the TCJA probably did juice the economy a little because it's essentially a way of injecting money into the economy (because there's no attendant spending cut)

But the same logic applies to stuff like stimulus for covid that the gop doesn't want to spend money on

Big difference is the former benefits the wealthy almost exclusively whereas covid relief might help the poors

---

SSJCAT posted...

Id like some specific data if possible to use against these people

The problem with the data is it is strongly in Trumps favour. So best not whip it out.

---

Turtlemayor333 posted...

Trump was great for jobs

Problem is the jobs were all at McDonalds, Burger King and Taco Bell

---

We had the lowest unemployment in 50 years before the pandemic.

StarsOfCCTV posted...

The problem with the data is it is strongly in Trumps favour. So best not whip it out.

---

Does low unemployment mean much if the new jobs are low paying, wages remain stagnant, debt(Government, business and personal) keeps rising and when a crisis hits he fucks it up and and completely destroys progress made?

---

No he was actually pretty bad. He inherited a great Obama economy and messed it up.

---

Frizzurd posted...

I didn't see prices drop like economists claim.

Economists act like TVs are the only things people buy. Rents and food prices destroyed the median wage gains people love to trot out.

The rich got a whole lot richer but that's not reflective of 90% of the country. I also don't really see how anyone can just handwave away the fact that he and the republican party decided to fuck over the vast majority of the country in response to the pandemic.

---

no

---

Trying to provoke China was always a bad move.

---

it's pointless to ask this here. orange man bad

---

ledbowman posted...

it's pointless to ask this here. orange man bad

What do you think?

---

The extent of Trumps economic accomplishments aside from giving the superwealthy a tax cut were to make it advantageous for businesses to turn a bunch of full time jobs into slightly more part time jobs.

Then he said he got rid of unemployment and called it a day.

---

People thought so, which in economy logic means yes

---

all i know is that my stocks and investments were doing quite well.

The economy as a whole was basically being propped up by duct tape and prayer before Covid.

Trump inherited a great economy, but his stupid decisions made it very hard for companies to grow (nobody wants to invest in another store or anything if you depend on Canadian steel and Trump just started a trade war because someone looked at him funny), so the economy was effectively being propped up by consumer spending. This means the economy was going to crash once people started slowing down on buying useless crap, which sure, everyone likes buying lots of worthless crap, but that was going to stop, and that was the only thing keeping us out of a recession.

Covid should have been a home run for Trump tbh. It gave him a ready-made excuse that all of his earlier terrible decisions were totally fine, all he had to do was handle the pandemic okay. And instead, Trump did what he does.

Balrog0 posted...

What do you think?

that it was doing pretty good?

---

it's pointless to ask this here.

why, because people aren't saying things you want to hear?
---

Donald Trump has singlehandedly lowered the countrys unemployment rate by making sure dozens if not hundreds of people were cycled in and out of employment in his administration

---

we had three (3) stock market crashes under trump

useful to keep perspective on that.

---

Fluttershy posted...

it's pointless to ask this here.

why, because people aren't saying things you want to hear?

no because most people will not give an inch to anything good he does

---

ledbowman posted...

no because most people will not give an inch to anything good he does

Like how you'll blame Obama for Bush's economic depression.

no because most people will not give an inch to anything good he does

kinda sounds like you're looking for an echo chamber to me.
---

ButteryMales posted...

Like how you'll blame Obama for Bush's economic depression.

no clown. in fact there's literally a topic up right now about bush where i blame him for the recession

---

Idk why do you ask this here, full of hater and liberal that will find any reason to deny Trump's work and promote Obama instead lol.

---