(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Your life was not "better" under Donald Trump [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-05-25 Reposted from Dark Skies on the Horizon I’ve said this before, probably several times. But the key argument made by those who are choosing to support Trump is that “everything was better.” They don’t care about the little gaffes that Trump might have. They don’t care about the stupid shit he says, they only care about their own bottom line. They don’t care that he’s said he would be a Dictator. “But it was only for one day!” They don’t care that he said he would Terminate the Constitution. “Well, yeah, but he didn’t mean it.” They don’t care that he falsely claims Biden tried to Assassinate him. “The. FBI brought guns didn’t they?” It doesn’t matter what outrageous thing Trump says. It doesn’t matter if he gets convicted of a crime. It doesn’t matter that he’s lost over 60 election fraud cases and over a half dozen civic cases involving Russia-gate, he’s lost lawsuits against Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Peter Strozk, Christopher Steele, Trump University, the Trump Charity Foundation, the Trump Organization Tax case, the Trump Business Fraud case and two cases against E. Jean Carroll. None of that matters, what matters is what people have in the pockets, and whether they can pay their bills. What matters is the fact that they blame Joe Biden for all that. Except that he had nothing to do with it. Let’s recall that four years ago, our economy was in a Total Freefall. Unemployment reached as high as 14%. Schools were closed. We had no testing plan for Covid. We had no supplies of PPE for medical providers. People were dying so rapidly from Covid-19 that they had to use refrigerated trucks to hold the bodies. And Trump was telling us it was “no big deal” and it “would just go away.” Trump closed the Pandemic response office and had thrown out the Pandemic response plan that the Obama Administration had crafted after the Ebola outbreak. Trump didn’t care. He cut the budget of the CDC, he ignored warnings — and disbanded the NSC Pandemic group and recalled the advance Pandemic teams that had been stationed in countries around the world, including China. The novel coronavirus is exposing the inadequacies of a cornerstone of Trump’s (and Kushner’s) governing philosophy. “The entire argument behind electing Donald Trump is that business can handle anything better than the government, right? So the entire philosophy, the entire ideology of every senior leader in the White House and that they’ve installed across the federal government is, ‘Get the private sector to do it. Government shouldn’t be picking winners or losers and coordinating these efforts,’” the former administration official told me. But the problem is, there are some things only the federal government can do, after all. “This is the crisis for this administration, just as every administration faces, that challenges its ideology and worldview to its core and cannot be effectively addressed with that worldview.” With no sign that Trump is poised to fill the leadership vacuum, sources I spoke with fear the devastation is only beginning. “I think that we will eventually come out the other side, but it’s going to be one where it would take longer and they would lead to more loss of life,” the former government official told me. “The private sector is mobilizing but there’s nobody to pick it up on the other end…I think the governors are going to take the necessary steps to be able to get through this, but it’s not going to be because of a compelling, informed narrative from institutions that have traditionally helped guide us to the right place.” By November, as the outbreak raged across the nation — Trump was MIA. On Nov. 19, hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against Thanksgiving travel, Vice President Pence, who chairs the coronavirus task force, agreed to hold a full news conference with some of the doctors — something they had not done since the summer. But much to the doctors’ dismay, Pence did not forcefully implore people to wear masks, nor did the administration take meaningful action on testing. As for the president, he did not appear at all. Trump went days without mentioning the pandemic other than to celebrate progress on vaccines. The president by then had abdicated his responsibility to manage the public health crisis and instead used his megaphone almost exclusively to spread misinformation in a failed attempt to overturn the results of the election he lost to President-elect Joe Biden. “I think he’s just done with covid,” said one of Trump’s closest advisers who, like many others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss internal deliberations and operations. “I think he put it on a timetable and he’s done with covid. . . . It just exceeded the amount of time he gave it.” When he responded to the outbreak, he was flat-footed. He didn’t establish a national testing plan, he didn’t provide PPE to first responders — many states had to do that on their own — and although he did create Operation:Warp Speed, the first company to produce a vaccine, Pfizer, had not been part of that and didn’t get a dime in development money. [They made money later for pay for producing the vaccine.] So, sorry no, he doesn’t really deserve credit for that. He fucking told people to inject bleach to prevent Covid. He told them to use Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine which were both totally ineffective. Over 1 Million Americans died, and about 230,000 of them could have been prevented but weren’t largely because of Trump and his bullshit. And he refused to take any blame or responsibility for any of that either, but he deserves it. Trump tries to claim he had the “best unemployment ever” — but he didn’t. Biden has had better. When Barack Obama came into office unemployment was 7.8%. As the Great Recession went on it would rise to a peak of 9.9% in March of 2010. As you can see from the chart it then slowly receded downward to where it was handed off to Trump at 4.2% (That’s an improvement of 5.2% - 4x greater than Trump) Through his two terms he created 10.3 Million jobs. When Trump came into office, unemployment was at 4.2% (it had decreased from 4.7% shown on Jan 20th) By February of 2020 it had improved to 3.5%. (Which is an improvement of 0.7%) After February it spiked up to 14.8% in April until dropping back down to 6.4% when he left office. (Which to be fair is a 12% improvement) Through his term, he had gained 6 Million jobs, but in 2020 he lost 8 million bringing his total to -2.7 Million jobs. The truth here is that there was a window between 2016-2019 where unemployment was historically low and prices are inflation were also low. But what exactly did Trump do to bring that about? The only major bill he signed was the tax cut which increased the deficit by $600 Billion. It didn’t hurt the economy, but it didn’t help it either. Unemployment was already going down - in fact it went down more slowly under Trump than it had been improving under Obama. (You can see the slight difference in the chart above) Prices, inflation and interest rates were already low under Obama. How exactly did he change or improve things in any significant way? Biden has continued taking unemployment down from 6.4% down to as low as 3.4% in April of 2023 — even lower than Trump. (Improving by 3%) It is currently at 3.8%. So far Biden has created 15 Million jobs. Even if you subtract the 8 Million job that Trump lost during Covid, that’s still a net benefit of 7 Million jobs which alone is faster than Obama and Trump both. Overall, though things had been nice in 2019 — they certainly were not better in 2020. Not under Trump. No one was better off in 2020 than they are now. People blame Joe Biden for inflation and prices after Covid. Even though it was Donald Trump who made a deal with the Saudis and Russia for them to cut their oil production in April of 2020 and that oil prices started to rise right after that later in the month. WASHINGTON/LONDON/DUBAI (Reuters) - As the United States pressed Saudi Arabia to end its oil price war with Russia, President Donald Trump gave Saudi leaders an ultimatum. In an April 2 phone call, Trump told Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that unless the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) started cutting oil production, he would be powerless to stop lawmakers from passing legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from the kingdom, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The threat to upend a 75-year strategic alliance, which has not been previously reported, was central to the U.S. pressure campaign that led to a landmark global deal to slash oil supply as demand collapsed in the coronavirus pandemic - scoring a diplomatic victory for the White House. Trump delivered the message to the crown prince 10 days before the announcement of production cuts. The kingdom’s de facto leader was so taken aback by the threat that he ordered his aides out of the room so he could continue the discussion in private, according to a U.S. source who was briefed on the discussion by senior administration officials. Oil prices were plummeting because of the shutdowns which had everyone staying home and no one driving. Immediately after Trump made this deal, prices started rising as shown in this chart. That’s when oil prices began rising which impacted the cost of trucking and providing goods to market. During the Pandemic, the rising costs didn’t matter that much, but as people started coming back as the vaccine as distributed —- By Biden — so that Schools and Business started to re-open, it made a big difference. Clearly, prices have come down somewhat since then, especially in response to Biden releasing portions of the strategic reserve but only marginally. The Biden administration announced this week that it is releasing 1 million barrels of gasoline from a Northeast reserve in an effort to reduce prices when drivers hit the road this summer. The gasoline will be sold in 100,000-barrel tranches over a six-week stretch between Memorial Day and July 4, bolstering the nation's fuel supply during the busiest driving season of the year, the U.S. Department of Energy said in a statement. "The Biden-Harris Administration is laser focused on lowering prices at the pump for American families," Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. However, experts who spoke to ABC News rejected the notion that the release of gasoline reserves would meaningfully lower prices at the pump. The move will likely result in a modest reduction for drivers in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast but will have little effect nationwide, they said. "This is not a needle-mover," Patrick de Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, told ABC News. "It will not impact prices for the majority of Americans." Saudi Arabia still hasn't increased their production as they’ve been racking in profits ever since cutting it. Russia oil is off the market and so is Iranian oil since Trump shut down the Iran Nuclear deal. When Congress tried to implement a Windfall Profits Tax to force companies like these and grocery stores to cut the size of the profits and lower taxes, Republicans blocked it. Senate Republicans blocked a proposal today to tax the windfall profits of the largest oil companies, despite pleas by Democratic leaders to use the measure to address US anger over $4 a gallon gasoline. The Democratic energy package would have imposed a tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest US oil companies and given the federal government more power to address oil market speculation that the bill's supporters argue has added to the crude oil price surge. "Americans are furious about what's going on," declared Senator Byron Dorgan, a Democrat, and wants Congress to do something about oil company profits and "an orgy of speculation" on oil markets. But Republicans argued the Democratic proposal focusing on new oil industry taxes is not the answer to US energy problems. Republicans claimed that in response to this tax — which would only be implemented in response to high prices — the oil companies would only raise prices, which would then also increase the tax rather than cut prices which would eliminate the tax. They refused to claw back these profits even though most of the cause of continuing inflation - is corporate price gouging. So Biden is trying to do what he can, but when he wanted power to do more - Republicans stopped him. And what else do they think we should do? Well, apparently, nothing. All Trump says is that we should “Drill, baby, Drill” But then US Domestic Oil production and exports are already at an all-time high. For the sixth consecutive year, the United States has maintained its position as the world's top oil producer, according to the Energy Information Administration (‘EIA’). In 2023, U.S. crude output reached a historic high, averaging 12.9 million barrels per day (‘bpd’), surpassing the previous record set in 2019. December alone saw a remarkable milestone, with production peaking at over 13.3 million bpd. This upward trajectory continues through this year, with an estimated record-breaking output of 13.21 million bpd. The primary driver behind this growth is the enhanced efficiency of well operations, reinforcing the nation's standing as a dominant force in the global oil market. We’ve never produced as much oil as we are right now — shockingly, that hasn’t cut prices. This also flies in the face of the argument that “Biden cut oil production” — but the fact is that he didn’t. He stopped leasing new land in ANWR and on public lands for oil production —- but there weren’t any oil wells yet on that land, so there wasn’t a single oil-producing well that he “shut down.” He didn’t stop any current production. Yes, he canceled the Keystone XL pipeline. But that was merely an additional pipeline to the already existing Keystone, which is still in operation. This map shows the exiting Keystone in red and the XL extension in a blue-dashed line. All that oil is still being processed. It never stopped. However, the issue is that the company drilling and providing that oil - is Canadian. Not a drop of that is U.S. Oil, it’s transported across U.S. soil but we don’t oil it. Canada uses our pipeline to get their oil to processing plants - but then it gets sold on the international market. We would have to import that oil to make use of it. On top of this, inflation has been a worldwide phenomenon- it hasn’t just affected the US, it’s hurt most countries around the world. In fact, and Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act the rate of U.S. inflation has been reduced faster than any other country on Earth. Thanks to President Biden's leadership coming out of the pandemic and historic investments in America, the United States is leading the world's economic growth—beating our peers. As the Washington Post put it this weekend, "the surprisingly strong [U.S.] economy is outperforming all of its major trading partners" and "quashing fears of a recession." The American people are benefitting: "U.S. wages — after inflation — grew 2.8 percent" over the last four years, outpacing all other G7 countries. Bloomberg and CNN came to similar conclusions when comparing the U.S. economy to China: "The US has pulled further ahead of China in the race for world's biggest economy," as Bloomberg put it. CNN wrote: "The US economy is growing faster than Wall Street expected, markets are soaring and inflation is approaching the Federal Reserve's 2% target. It appears that a soft landing, where price rises are tamed and the economy manages to avoid recession, is possible. Meanwhile, China's economy appears to be in distress." This has been difficult, this has been tough. Frankly, we recovered from Covid-19 amazingly fast. I would give credit for that both to Trump and Biden and the various stimulus packages they both implemented - even though they both skyrocketed the deficit. Those packages were far larger than what was done in response to the Great Recession in 2008 and the recovery from that took essentially 8 years to complete. The Dot com crash took years to recover from. Why would we expect to come out of a massive crash like Covid-19 in just one year? We recovered the jobs quickly, but it’s going to take time for everything else to rebalance itself. Biden did put in the Inflation Reduction Act and it’s had a great effect. Biden is going after anti-trust efforts to break up business monopolies that are able to increase prices without any competition. But that’s going to take years. He tried to get a faster tool, the Windfall Profits Tax which would cut some of those profits, but Republicans said “No.” With more Democrats in Congress - he might be able to get that tax passed and force these corporations to bring down prices at last. But is there any evidence that Trump would do better at any of this? It seems to me he will be more likely to again cut taxes and allow even more corporate profits and stock buy-backs by shareholders, not reign these companies in for the protection of consumers. Trump would also likely cancel much of the Inflation Reduction Act probably causing more prices to increase. High inflation and gas prices were not caused by Joe Biden — but Donald Trump will absolutely NOT fix any of it. He was a greater cause of it than almost anyone, and he’ll likely make it worse. He doesn’t even seriously care about that any more than he cared about the people who suffered and died due to Covid. If people truly care about their bottom line, that’s what people need to realize and take seriously this election. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/5/25/2242674/-Your-life-was-not-better-under-Donald-Trump?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/