Favorable US Economic Prospects Will Continue Under Harris; Trump’s Boasts About His 1st Term Economy Overrated!

By Donald A. Collins | 17 September 2024
Church and State

(Credit: YouTube / screengrab)

As this close Presidential election nears and the US economy keeps from falling into a recession after the good years under Biden, the unemployment rate stays low and the adverse claims about our country’s dangerous condition by Trump get more and more ridiculous.

The Conference Board is very clear about an unlikely recession as it reports here:

Recent financial market gyrations notwithstanding, the US is likely not on the cusp of recession. Nonetheless, the economy is expected to lose momentum in H2 2024 as high prices and elevated interest rates sap domestic demand. Real GDP growth rose by an unexpected 2.8 percent quarterly annualized in Q2 2024 (from 1.4 percent in Q1 2024), led by stronger domestic demand and a surge in inventories. But there were some signs of weakness, especially as consumers dialed back on services spending, which has been a key contributor to real GDP growth over the last two years. Consumers and businesses are likely to continue cutting spending and investments ahead, suggesting economic growth decelerated to 0.6 percent annualized in Q3 2024.

You can read its full report here.

Trump keeps claiming how great his Presidency improved the economy, but he got his boost from the Obama years as you can read here.

The Conference Board says:

Greg Mankiw, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under George W. Bush, states that “the economy was in fine shape at the end of the Obama administration, despite what President Trump sometimes asserts.”7

A substantial part of economic progress under Trump occurred before his signature economic policy took effect

President Trump’s most significant economic policy, his $1.9 trillion tax cuts, did not take effect until January 2018—a year after he took office. By that time, unemployment had dropped from 4.7 to 4.1 percent, household incomes had increased $850 and 2.3 million new jobs had been created.

The tax cuts may have caused a slight “sugar high”—but at a very high price

The 2017 tax cuts likely added some fuel to the economy because they increased corporate profits (benefiting shareholders) and gave individuals more money to spend. However, many economists say that the “sugar high” from the tax cuts is wearing off. In fact, business investment has declined for two consecutive quarters and a recent analysis by The New York Times found no relationship between the size of the tax cut companies and industries received and their investments. 8 In the long term, the $1.9 trillion in new federal debt likely will weigh down the economy.”

In piling on $7 trillion in new National debt, Trump gave the rich most of the money as it did not trickle down as he claimed.

That people say Trump is to be remembered for his great economy are mistaken and should read this full Conference Board report.

Meantime, now the inept GOP House can’t even approve the national debt continuation which is being held back by their right-wing members!

Finally, like the leaders from both parties, I am relieved that neither of the two assassination attempts against Trump succeeded. However, Trump’s treasonous efforts deserve sharp punishment. Trump’s instigation of violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, proved to us his goal of staging a coup to keep Biden the duly elected President from serving and to achieve his goal of authoritarian control of our government. He has disclaimed the steps proposed by the Heritage Foundation Project 2025 recommendations, but his radical plans to impose tariffs and his promise to deport immigrants are only two of the extreme actions he would undertake.

Those actions of course would follow his pardoning himself from all his crimes!

Thus, I am praying that Trump loses on November 5th so that the treasonous crimes he instigated can be prosecuted in full.

American citizens would then be able to observe that no one not even a former President given immunity by our corrupt ideologically driven Supreme Court can evade punishment! His destruction of the Supreme Court’s reputation will linger for years based on the youth of the 3 ideologues he appointed plus the outrageous biases and behavior of Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Jr, both of whom refuse to recuse themselves in cases where they have conflicts of interest or abide by strong ethical rules made mandatory for judges serving in lower Federal courts.

In her September 4, 2024 Washington Post opinion piece entitled One urgent reason the justices need a credible ethics code? Ginni Thomas by Ruth Marcus, she begins “And you thought she couldn’t do any more to cast disrepute on the Supreme Court.

Just when you think Virginia “Ginni” Thomas (wife of Justice Thomas) can’t do any more to cast disrepute on the institution where her husband has served as a justice for more than three decades, just when you think that perhaps, just perhaps, the justices and their spouses have been chastened by the torrent of bad publicity — there she goes again.

The latest bombshell, from ProPublica and Documented, involves Thomas’s gushing, all-caps thank-you email to the conservative First Liberty Institute. This is not just any conservative organization — it’s one that litigates extensively before the Supreme Court, on some of its most contested cases involving religious liberty and LGBTQ+ rights.

​And Thomas’s email was not just some generic note of appreciation. It was to praise First Liberty for its fierce, and deep-pocketed, fight against … wait for it … proposals to reform the Supreme Court and strengthen ethics enforcement against the justices.

YOU GUYS HAVE FILLED THE SAILS OF MANY JUDGES. CAN I JUST TELL YOU, THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH,” Thomas wrote in an email read by First Liberty President Kelly Shackelford during a July 31 call with his group’s top donors, according to the report.

You can read Marcus’ full indictment of this dangerous insider here.

Trump has spent over $100 million on legal fees to combat his multiple indictments. Much of that money involved using supporters’ contributions intended to foster his election campaigns.

The drastic damage Trump has foisted upon the world’s most successful democracy will take years to fully evaluate, but his conviction and subsequent punishment would be a major first step in restoring public trust in all our governmental institutions!!

Former US Navy officer, banker and venture capitalist, Donald A. Collins, a free lance writer living in Washington, DC, has spent over 50 years working for women’s reproductive health as a board member and/or officer of numerous family planning organizations including Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Guttmacher Institute, Family Health International and Ipas. Yale under graduate, NYU MBA. He is the author of “From the Dissident Left: A Collection of Essays 2004-2013”, “Trump Becoming Macbeth: Will our democracy survive?”, “We Humans Overwhelm Our Earth: 11 or 2 Billion by 2100?”, “What Can Be Done Now to Save Habitable Life on Planet Earth?”, “Vote”, “Can Homo Sapiens Survive?”, “Will Choice and Democracy Win?”, “Can Our U.S. Survive 8 Plus Billion of Us”, “Economic Growth: A Cancer on all Earthly Life”, “On the Precipice of Political Disaster in 2024”, “Democracy at Red State Risk” and “Does Trump Go to Jail or to The Oval Office?”.

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