After reaching record highs in January, Wall Street has been on a steady decline now that Trump’s smoke-and-mirrors economic policies have taken control of the free market.
In January, as you may recall, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act took effect with a promise it would pay for itself — a promise Paul Ryan immediately reneged on — and that it would reduce the deficit.
As we recently discovered, both of these promises were bald face lies used to pass the business-friendly but individually unfriendly tax cuts. Despite election season hyperbole, tax receipts are down .4 percent through August, or 2.9 percent when adjusted for inflation.
In addition to tax cuts, we have exploding budget deficits due to Trump’s excessive spending, which has increased 7.4 percent through August. And it was recently announced that the total deficit for FY2018 is $779 billion, the largest deficit since 2012.
No worries, however. Even though the US is cruising toward the largest federal debt-load in history, Mitch McConnell wants to assure America that he finds the deficit “very disturbing” but that “it’s not a Republican problem.”
Blaming others is a family tradition with Trump and the GOP.
White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow is blaming Democrats for the recent losses on Wall Street, and now Trump is blaming Fed Chairman Jerome Powell, calling the man he appointed to the job “the biggest threat” to his success. He also issued a warning that he might fire him.
It’s a good thing Powell isn’t in the media because in Trump’s world, that would also make him “an enemy of the American people.”
Of course, this blame game is nothing but a ploy to shift voter attention away from the reality that Trump’s economic policies are failing. His tax cuts aren’t helping workers, his spending is out of control, and his trade war is rekindling inflation and fears of recession.
Back to the Fed for a moment. After the 2016 election, Federal Reserve officials expressed serious concerns about Trump’s economic policies and how aggressive changes in the areas of taxes, spending, and trade would be inflationary and cause interest rates to rise. Based on recent news, it would appear that their concerns were justified.
Meanwhile, US stocks continued falling yesterday, extending the slide that began earlier this month and wiping out all 2018 gains. Still, Trump will continue taking credit when the imaginary economic news is good and will blame everyone but himself when the real economic news is bad.
David Leach is the owner of The Strident Conservative. His politically incorrect and always “right” columns are also featured on NOQReport.com.
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