Even the president’s “smart guys” are just sticking to campaign-style talking points when under even the slightest pressure about the lack of results proving Donald Trump’s agenda has meant anything good for anyone other than his rich buddies. During an appearance this week on CNN, Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro struggled in response to basic questions from host Poppy Harlow about both the lack of financial stabilization that Trump had promised to bring and the documented better economic times under the supposedly oh-so-terrible Obama administration. He even tried to blame House Democrats for the ballooning federal deficit, which has been driven by developments like military spending and tax cuts that Trump himself proudly signed into law.
Asked about Trump’s so far failed promise to eliminate the federal debt within eight years, Navarro railed:
‘Elections do have consequences. One of the problems we faced in the short term with the Democrats holding the House is that when we made the last budget deal, that was more expenditures than we otherwise would have had. The trick of the budget, really, is not cutting expenditures or raising taxes so much as growing faster. The difference between the 2 percent growth rate and 3 percent growth rate is all the difference in the world.’
So is the problem the expenditures or is the problem something else? Within the span of less than a minute, he contradicted himself — and then he promptly swung back the other way and contradicted himself again.
When Harlow interrupted some of his anti-Obama ranting with numbers showing the repeated high economic growth rates under Obama, he seemingly all of a sudden decided that wait — economic growth rates actually don’t matter.
After Harlow showed the four quarters of economic growth over five percent, Navarro insisted:
‘And back in the Obama-Biden years, it was horrible… It was a horrible economy during the Obama years… If you can tell me that higher regulation, higher taxes are going to really propel growth like the Democrats want to do, I got a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn, which I think you’re probably close to right there… but we can have that debate. This is all politics.’
So does the growth rate matter or does it not matter? When it’s Trump, it seems to, and when it’s Obama, it doesn’t.
Watch:
Trump has consistently failed to deliver the magical economic growth that he promised — for example, average monthly job growth under Trump has been lower than it was for the last few years of Obama’s time in office.
He has slashed higher income brackets’ tax rates, ballooned projects like military spending and wall construction, and then he’s attempted to turn around and blame just about everyone else for the ensuing economic issues from problems like declining tax revenue.
These issues are among many poised to weigh on his re-election campaign. He’s running as the supposed champion of forgotten Americans, or something, but to say that he’s delivered little other than an attempt to turn backwards racism into national and international policy would be a generous understatement.
