Member-only story
An economic crisis completely caused by Trump
Finally something his supporters can legitimately claim he accomplished
It’s something of a truism that politicians have relatively little impact upon the economy. Democrats like me love to point out that most economic indicators since Trump was elected are comparable — or lower — than the economic indicators under Obama.
Obama, however, was the beneficiary of the mother of all recessions at the beginning of his administration. As a result, the economy had nowhere to go but up.
The economy did crash under Bush. But, many of the root causes of the financial crisis, in the form of financial deregulation, occurred under Clinton.
That said, I do think Democrats have something to crow about when it comes to economic stewardship relative to Republicans, and it has to do with inequality. As I have blogged about ad nauseum, our economy’s vast inequality is entirely driven by policy. On that point the data are clear: inequality goes down under Democrats, even if slightly, and goes up under Republicans.
