President Trump gives remarks on his tax reform plans during an appearance at the Loren Cook Co. on Wednesday in Springfield, Mo. (Michael B. Thomas/Getty Images)
There is little doubt that the economy continues to strengthen under President Trump. But yet another misleading argument is emerging from him and his supporters in an effort to pump up his successes.
Here’s what Trump said Wednesday in his tax reform speech in Missouri:
In the last 10 years, our economy has grown at only around 2 percent a year. … And today — a very appropriate day that this should happen — we just announced that we hit 3 percent in GDP. It just came out. And on a yearly basis, as you know, the last administration, during an eight-year period, never hit 3 percent. So we’re really on our way.
Former Trump economic adviser Stephen Moore echoed the talking point on CNN on Wednesday afternoon:
We just had a report that came out today, which found out that the second-quarter GDP growth was 3 percent, which is a lot higher than we had under Obama, which was 2 percent.
In making their claims, though, Trump and Moore leave out some extremely important words. And the casual observer would never know that they are comparing apples and oranges.
You’ll notice that Trump and Moore talk about Trump’s GDP growth being at 3 percent. As Moore notes but Trump fails to, that’s just in the second quarter of 2017. (That number was just revised upward.) But when Trump describes GDP growth under Barack Obama’s administration, he adds the clause “on a yearly basis.” Moore omits that key qualifier but is clearly referring to yearly growth under Obama, as Trump was.
Why? Trump and Moore are conveniently comparing Trump’s numbers in one three-month period to Obama’s yearly figures for his entire administration because Obama surpassed 3 percent quarterly growth on multiple occasions, including in two quarters in 2013, two in 2014 and one in 2015 — as this chart from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows:
It’s also accurate that, when you average figures over an entire year, Obama never crested 3 percent. He averaged a little over 2 percent growth in the final seven years of his presidency.
Trump’s comparison also conveniently omits the first quarter, of which he was president for more than three-quarters and when there was just 1.2 percent GDP growth.
In fairness to Trump, he can’t cite anything except his own quarterly reports, because he hasn’t been president for a year. And economists like to average GDP over longer periods, given the fluctuations that can take place from quarter to quarter.
But those fluctuations are also kind of the point; comparing any one quarter to longer periods is ripe for cherry-picking. And for Trump to say “we’re really on our way” is something Obama could just as well have been able to claim on five occasions, based on Trump’s own criteria.