One of Trump favorite talking points has shriveled up and died, as the stock market in the second year of Obama‘s first term is now better than Trump‘s.

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The Washington Post crunched the numbers and concluded:

– At close on Tuesday, both the Dow Jones industrial average and the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index were about where they’d started the year. In the first 12 months after the tax-cut bill, the markets had been mostly flat. This wasn’t the economic “rocket fuel” Trump once promised the tax cuts would be.

– To the same point in the second year of Obama’s first term, though, both the Dow and S&P 500 saw bigger percentage-point gains than the markets have seen under Trump, by far.

– To the same point in the second year of Obama’s first term, though, both the Dow and S&P 500 saw bigger percentage-point gains than the markets have seen under Trump, by far.

The tepid market growth in 2018 has also meant that one of Trump’s most-prized talking points, about market growth under his administration, itself compares unfavorably with Obama. Since each president’s inauguration, markets grew more robustly in 2009 and 2010 than from Trump’s inauguration to Tuesday.

Trump established this comparison to Obama and now he is losing

It was Donald Trump who made the stock market a benchmark for his success. Most Americans remember that stock prices were one of Trump‘s favorite talking points during his first year in office. Trump loved to use the market numbers as a weapon to bash Obama, but the Trump stock market was a bubble based on nothing but optimism and speculation.

Trump killed the market’s momentum with his trade war and tax cuts for the wealthy, which have accelerated the signs that a recession is around the corner. For all of the chatter about interest rates, the real driver of this downward market is the slowly growing realization that a recession is coming sooner rather than later, and the actions of Trump along with Republicans in Congress have only made things worse.

Obama is beating Trump on Trump‘s own metrics, as even by Trump‘s own standard, Obama is the better president.

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Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association