Trump bashing Biden after an anemic GDP number comes out - but despite rants, Biden economy has been good
Can’t find it anywhere to provide a link, but as I tuned in to CNN yesterday morning the first thing up was a court-bound Donald Trump, who temporarily suspended the daily ‘everybody’s pickin’ on me’ monologue that starts every session of his hush money trial. Instead, Trump couldn’t wait to pounce on the news that the U.S. economy grew at a somewhat anemic 1.6% pace during the first quarter of this year, which he said was a sure sign of Joe Biden’s ineptitude at managing the economy.
He particularly made note of yesterday morning’s selloff in the markets, which was kind of laughable, considering that the stock market since Biden took over has been a beast, specifically a beast of the bullish kind.
Go back exactly four years to April 26, 2020, which was Trump’s final April in office. On that date the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 23,619. Four years and one day later, today, the market opens at 38,085. That’s a 61% move in four years. Add in a few percentage points for the annual dividends that you received if you owned the Dow during that stretch and you’d have a pretty darn handsome 70% gain during the period.
But, despite all that, Donald Trump (seen above in a public domain image posted on wikimedia commons) calls attention to yesterday’s market as a reflection of how badly Biden has been handling things. The former guy is desperate.
As to that weak 1.6% reading itself, it’s probably a good idea to remember that this is the advance estimate on how the economy did in Q1. Revisions could tell a much different story. Things might actually have been worse, or they might actually have been better. Right now nobody knows.
Consider how things went a year ago. The initial estimate for Q1 GDP growth in 2023 was for a 1.3% annualized gain, a number even more anemic than yesterday’s report. As it turned out, though, things were going much better than first thought. A couple of months later, GDP was finally revised upward to 2%.
The Biden economy, reflected by the long, strong surge in stock prices, has been good by any standard. Inflation could be a bit tamer, but at 3.5% it hasn’t hobbled the country and is actually a bit below its long term average.
Looking at things from a local perspective, South Dakota tourism numbers — which are probably a reasonable indicator of how things are going in the general economy — set records in 2023 and seem poised to have another decent year in ‘24.
Given that backdrop, it’s no surprise that a desperate Trump is quick to seize on one number, a tentative figure at that, as a starting point for a general diatribe aimed at Biden’s handling of the economy.
It’s ridiculous. Consumers certainly don’t seem to be paying much attention to the negativity as sentiment is about mid-range and spending remains strong.
It would be nice if it were all peaches and cream, of course, but that’s never the case. Of interest to South Dakotans, there is a downside note. Farmers, who represent about 5.6% of the U.S. economy, could be doing better, but as important as they are here, they aren’t felt so impactfully on a national, macro level.
I expect Trump and Biden’s other critics to continue their overwrought and baseless attacks on Biden even though they’re wasting their breath. Consumers, the real drivers of the American economy, aren’t paying much attention as they continue to spend at the brisk pace they’ve maintained in recent years.
Biden is part of the reality, Trump is part of the noise.
John Tsitrian is a businessman and writer from the Black Hills. He was a weekly columnist for the Rapid City Journal for 20 years. His articles and commentary have also appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Denver Post and The Omaha World-Herald. Tsitrian served in the Marines for three years (1966-69), including a 13-month tour of duty as a radioman in Vietnam. Reprint with permission.
