I just read a column Robert Reich wrote in Newsweek. Reich's premise is that President Trump has turned his back on working Americans in order to help out big corporations and the super wealthy. The column was so wrong that it actually made me laugh out loud. Here's a sample:
Reich says that incomes for middle and lower income Americans have fallen. That supposedly proves that Trump doesn't care about them. But here's the problem. Reich says that those incomes have fallen since 2007, the year prior to the financial crisis. Think about that. That's a 12 year period with Trump being president only in the last three years. And guess what. During the first 9 years of that period, the incomes of middle and lower income Americans did fall. Indeed, the Obama presidency and the Democrat control was a terrible time economically for middle and lower income Americans. Since Trump took office in 2017, however, the incomes of middle and lower income Americans have been rising. In fact, the percentage gains among this group have been larger than the gains for upper income Americans according to government statistics. That's right. These people who Trump supposedly forgot are finally doing better under Trump. After years of stagnation or decline under Obama and the Democrats, the vast bulk of American workers have seen a major improvement in incomes under Trump and the Republicans.
Given the actual statistics, why would someone like Reich argue that the reverse is true? The answer is that Reich has a major problem. He's a member of the far left. He can't bring himself to admit that the policies he has been pushing worked only for the wealthy and hurt the average worker. So he just keeps arguing for the same old tired and failed policies and he distorts the facts in order to try to come up with some shred of support for what he is saying.
Reich is like Bernie Sanders without the angry shouting.
Reich says that incomes for middle and lower income Americans have fallen. That supposedly proves that Trump doesn't care about them. But here's the problem. Reich says that those incomes have fallen since 2007, the year prior to the financial crisis. Think about that. That's a 12 year period with Trump being president only in the last three years. And guess what. During the first 9 years of that period, the incomes of middle and lower income Americans did fall. Indeed, the Obama presidency and the Democrat control was a terrible time economically for middle and lower income Americans. Since Trump took office in 2017, however, the incomes of middle and lower income Americans have been rising. In fact, the percentage gains among this group have been larger than the gains for upper income Americans according to government statistics. That's right. These people who Trump supposedly forgot are finally doing better under Trump. After years of stagnation or decline under Obama and the Democrats, the vast bulk of American workers have seen a major improvement in incomes under Trump and the Republicans.
Given the actual statistics, why would someone like Reich argue that the reverse is true? The answer is that Reich has a major problem. He's a member of the far left. He can't bring himself to admit that the policies he has been pushing worked only for the wealthy and hurt the average worker. So he just keeps arguing for the same old tired and failed policies and he distorts the facts in order to try to come up with some shred of support for what he is saying.
Reich is like Bernie Sanders without the angry shouting.
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