Is This Really An 'Obama Economic Expansion'?

In 2015, Rookie Head Coach Steve Kerr led the Golden State Warriors to
their first NBA Championship in 40 years

(first published in North State Journal, 1/24/18)

Some news media outlets and liberal politicians are claiming that the expanding US economy is 'really due to the wonderful economy and policies President Obama passed on to President Trump!'.

Really?

There is only one thing different from an economic standpoint today than before the 2016 election: President Donald Trump is in the White House and President Obama and his preferred successor, Hillary Clinton, are not.

We have the same workers in America now as we did in 2016 before the election. The same level of low interest rates. The same expectations of low inflation amidst international economic competition. The same control of Congress and the Senate.

Yet we now have economic growth projections of up to 4% per year whereas CBO projected 1.9% GDP growth rates for years to come in their 2016 update before the election.

What happened?

President Trump came in and changed economic perceptions and expectations of the US business community right away. He is a businessman; President Obama was not.

He talks about the bright potential of the US economy whereas President Obama only saw the negative side of American businesses. As a result, American businesses and workers have responded to this new freedom from over-regulation and over-taxation in a very positive manner.

Think leadership and freedom don’t make a huge difference?

Consider what happened in San Francisco with the Golden State Warriors. In 2014, Steph Curry was in his 5th year and Klay Thompson was in his 3rd season. They had turned things around modestly from a disastrous string of seasons previously but were not really going anywhere under Coach Mark Jackson who was described as being temperamental, mercurial and ‘heavy-handed’ at times.

The Warriors fired Mark Jackson and brought in Steve Kerr to coach the same players in the same city and in the same stadium with a more up-tempo, free-flowing and from all outside observations, a more fun way of playing basketball at any level.

In 2015, the Warriors won their first NBA title in 40 years. Great talent was unleashed and given the freedom to do what they knew how to do: shoot the ball from everywhere and run the other team ragged.

President Obama's economic policies were 'heavy-handed' as well and government-first centric. Businessmen complained about his use of the heavy coercive hand of the federal government to 'solve' any problem at hand. The over-regulation of Dodd-Frank legislation frustrated financial lending institutions and his $1 trillion in a 'shovel-ready' infrastructure stimulus package didn't stimulate much of anything but more national debt.

And the ACA. If there ever was a poster child for government over-reach, it was Obamacare.

Had any of President Obama’s economic policies worked, we would have seen explosive GDP growth in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 or 2016 up to Election Day, 2016. 8 years of a presidential term is a long time to see if policies work or not.

Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman said on election night, 2016: 'If the question is when will markets recover (from the Trump election), the answer is NEVER!'

‘DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN!’ comes to mind immediately.

Due to the recently-passed tax cuts, 125 million households will start to see up to $200/month more in their paychecks starting in February.

3 million+ employees and counting will receive $1000 bonuses or more from their employers who are passing along the benefits of the lower corporate tax cuts to them this year.

Apple is bringing back $350 billion of profits from overseas to invest in 20,000 new jobs here in America on top of paying $38 billion in corporate taxes from repatriated profits that alone will reduce the federal budget deficit by close to 10% all by itself this year.

We can only hope that this freedom and economic good news continues as long as the Warriors continue winning NBA Championships. It might be awhile.

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