I’ve been fact checked by The Tribune on occasion about claims in my letters. That’s why I was so surprised when they let David Haughey’s letter (“Trump doing his best”) slip through with the right wing talking points about the economy under President Trump versus that evil socialist, former President Barack Obama.
He makes the claim that “economic growth in just six short months has doubled what took place under Obama,” later stating that due to Obama’s socialist policies it was an anemic 1.4 or 1.5 percent.
I massaged GDP numbers every way possible and even if you took all eight years of the Obama presidency, including the 2009 dip of -2.9 percent, you still get an eight-year average of 1.53 percent. Other years ranged from a low of 1.5 to a high of 2.9. The first two Trump quarters of 1.2 and 2.6 percent seem pretty much in line with the post-recession Obama years.
You can argue how much control a president has over the economy and how much their first year in office is inherited from the predecessor, but please don’t lie and misrepresent the numbers. In Haughey’s case, I can’t even come up with a twisted statistics angle on his claims.
Roger Edwards
Millcreek