Biden gets credit for Trump actions

Now Harris wants to take that credit too

Biden took office in January 2021, after the COVID pandemic caused massive declines in employment. As the pandemic ended the economy recovered and with it jobs.

Left wing Washington Post published an article giving credit to Joe Biden for greater job creation than occurred under Donald Trump, using the chart below to make the case. If you read the chart correctly, it shows that Trump policies saw job creation of over 200,000 new jobs a month, then a drop of 750,000 jobs during the pandemic.

It took two years into the Biden administration to bring back those jobs, and Biden job creation thereafter has been about 250,000 jobs a month, normal in an expanding economy with trillions of government spending. Of the 15.6 million jobs added during the Biden years, 9 million were the post-pandemic recovery and 6.6 were new jobs. Of those, 25% were government jobs. Hiring people to staff already bloated bureaucracies is not really “job creation”, it is just adding another burden the active economy has to carry. The 6.6 million jobs added unrelated to the pandemic recovery adjusted for the government hires amounted to about 130,000 jobs per month, about 40% less than during the Trump years.

The article went on to give Biden credit for lowering unemployment, again with a chart. The chart makes it clear that unemployment was lower during Trump’s regime, rose sharply during the pandemic, and has only now recovered to the Trump levels, and black unemployment remains higher than when Trump was in the White House before his tenure was interrupted by COVID.

A similar case is made for GDP growth. The economy has been remarkably strong through both Trump and Biden administrations, since both provided enormous stimulus - Trump through tax cuts and Biden through spending. Of course the GDP growth under Biden is inflated somewhat by the rising prices of goods and services while the Trump years were characterized by price stability.

Biden’s record on gasoline prices won’t stand scrutiny. While it is arguable that the economic recovery in the United States did benefit from Biden policies which involved massive government spending, the corollary was rampant inflation. Gas prices under Biden averaged more than double than under Trump, and there is no getting away from the fact that the high gas prices reflected poor energy policies, a result of a specious narrative that claims CO2 causes climate change.

Biden’s record on “attainable housing” is demonstrably terrible. Artificially low rates early in the Biden years, over-regulation of the housing industry, and an open southern border allowing millions of migrants into the country fueled a dramatic rise in home prices, putting them well beyond the means of many Americans. Note the dramatic rise in home prices began virtually on the day that Biden took office and repealed policies that curbed the inflow of immigrants across the southern border.

The massive government spending under Biden, using borrowed money, fueled inflation rates that remain well above the rates under Trump.

In attempt to curb inflation from running out of control the Fed kept raising interest rates to levels more than double those that prevailed under Trump. Higher rates meant higher mortgage carrying costs, higher interest on credit card debt and an inability for many Americans to make ends meet.

Notwithstanding the Trump and Biden policy differences, the U.S. economy has continued to grow with remarkable productivity, and the stock market has kept rising to what are now perhaps unsustainable levels. Most Americans didn’t participate in the bull market, but American billionaires, most of whom supported Biden and now Harris, have made out like bandits.

It is no wonder these Davos’ World Economic Forum elites are Democrat donors. There is cash involved and they end up with most of it.