Stop me if you’ve heard this one:
Our Economy is setting records on virtually every front – Probably the best our country has ever done. Tremendous value created since the Election. The World is respecting us again! Companies are moving back to the U.S.A.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2018
Okay, yeah, you heard that one. It’s the same thing that Donald Trump says every time anyone questions the job he’s doing as President. He wants everyone to know just how swimmingly his stewardship of the country is going, and for a man obsessed with the almighty dollar, nothing is more indicative of a robust nation than a robust economy.
We’ll have to set aside for a moment the fact that he’s claiming credit for jobs numbers that have been getting better for 9 years straight, and the fact that of the economic expansion we’re currently experiencing, he’s been President for about 17 percent of it, because the truth is, things are going pretty well for the economy as a whole — despite the glaring and deepening gulf between worker pay and executive pay.
Why, then, has he cited Title 5 of the United States Code on multiple occasions to take actions he would not have the power to take except in the case of “national emergency or serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare,” such as the civilian federal employee pay freeze he just announced — or his levying of tariffs without approval from Congress?
Democrats could very much sue to reverse these orders, even before their widely-expected takeover of Congress in November. After all, the tariffs are hurting American workers more than they’re hurting anyone else, let alone the economies of any other countries.
How can we be suffering from “serious economic conditions affecting the general welfare” when all we see are tweets like this?
The economy of the United States is stronger than ever before!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 17, 2018
Going all the way back…
The economy is looking really good. It has been many years that we have seen these kind of numbers. The underlying strength of companies has perhaps never been better.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 26, 2018
…to well before he ever began his assault on common sense.
The fact is, Trump knows that grim days are coming down the pike, and they’re tied directly to the massive, unnecessary, deficit-ballooning tax cuts that Republicans passed and he signed at the end of last year, his big “win” for his legacy.
Like his vanity videos in the Rose Garden, Trump is primarily concerned with looking like he knows what he’s doing. It doesn’t matter so much to him whether he does or not.
Featured image via screen capture
