And fucked it up after Bush left Obama/Biden the greatest recession since the depression. The putin/trump huggers will give putin/trump credit for the Obama/Biden economy of 2014 through early 2020. Now we are in the recession of putin/trump. Putin won the stupid Americans votes
Originally Posted by Tsmokies
The President usually gets far too much credit when the economy does well and far too much blame when it does poorly. There are many other factors -- Fed policy, the business cycle, what Congress does, what previous administrations and Congresses did, regulators (particularly important for the 2008/2009 recession), changes in technology, etc.
That said, you'd have to give Trump a better grade on the economy than Obama. Obama raised taxes and was a bit heavy handed with regulation, both of which slowed economic growth. His "shovel ready" stimulus was anything but.
Trump lowered taxes on corporations, and pass through entities that hire lots of people. Also he made regulation less onerous. I believe his trade wars had a negative effect, that was outweighed by taxes and deregulation.
Looking at actual performance, the recovery from the 2008/2009 recession was downright anemic compared to past recoveries, and until the coronavirus hit, the economy under Trump was doing very well.
We could argue all day about the coronavirus. Yeah, if we'd managed it well, which would have required not just better performance from Trump but also the CDC, FDA, governors, health departments, hospitals, etc., we would have done better, maybe in a best case scenario like Taiwan or South Korea, who have seen comparatively small declines in GDP. But U.S. economic performance this year really isn't out of whack with the rest of the developed world.
Unfortunately, the national debt has grown more than it should have under both presidents, and neither has done jack about the deficits that will accumulate in the future from entitlements.