Wednesday, January 31, 2018 11:06:22 PM
Robert Reich
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/1846485032030751
Trump's 11 Biggest State of the Union Lies:
1. “Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone.” Wrong. Only about 1.8 million jobs have been created since January 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the slowest jobs gain since 2010.
2. “After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.” Baloney. Wages have been moving upward trend since 2014, according to the BLS. Their growth slowed during the first year of Trump’s presidency.
3. “Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low.” Rubbish. Jobless claims rose to 233,000 last week. So it’s a six-week low, not a 45-year low. Besides, the number of jobless Americans who even qualify for unemployment insurance keeps shrinking.
4. “The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value." More rubbish. The S&P 500 gained about 33.3 percent from Obama’s inauguration through his first State of the Union, compared with 25.5 percent under Trump.
5. “Just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.” More BS. Trump’s tax cut is nearly 0.9 percent of GDP. Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut was 2.89 percent of GDP. Trump’s tax cut is even smaller than two of Barack Obama’s tax cuts as portion of GDP.
6. “Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.” Oh, please. A raft of independent analyses show that more than three-quarters of the individual tax cuts will go to people who earn more than $200,000 a year in taxable income – the richest 5 percent of all taxpayers.
7. “We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.” Utter baloney. The average household would get a tax cut of $1,610 in 2018, according to the Tax Policy Center. From then on, the average household will save less and less in taxes.
8. “Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses — many of them thousands of dollars per worker.” Rubbish. Fewer than 2.5 percent of American workers have received one-time bonuses so far, and many of the companies offering bonuses are on Wall Street.
9. “Since we passed tax cuts … Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.” In fact, Apple didn’t say whether its moves had been long planned or spurred by the tax changes, or even whether it’s increasing its level of U.S. investment from previous years.
10. "Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan.”
Baloney. Chrysler’s plan to invest $1 billion in a factory in Michigan was in motion before Trump’s election, according to its CEO, who credits talks with the United Auto Workers in 2015.
11. “We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world.” Rubbish. As a percentage of our total economy, the United States is one of the least generous of all wealthy nations, ranking 22nd out of 29 – putting us between Slovenia and Portugal.
[Thanks to Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly of the Washington Post, Politifact, and other researchers.]
https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/posts/1846485032030751
Trump's 11 Biggest State of the Union Lies:
1. “Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone.” Wrong. Only about 1.8 million jobs have been created since January 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the slowest jobs gain since 2010.
2. “After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages.” Baloney. Wages have been moving upward trend since 2014, according to the BLS. Their growth slowed during the first year of Trump’s presidency.
3. “Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low.” Rubbish. Jobless claims rose to 233,000 last week. So it’s a six-week low, not a 45-year low. Besides, the number of jobless Americans who even qualify for unemployment insurance keeps shrinking.
4. “The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value." More rubbish. The S&P 500 gained about 33.3 percent from Obama’s inauguration through his first State of the Union, compared with 25.5 percent under Trump.
5. “Just as I promised the American people from this podium 11 months ago, we enacted the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history.” More BS. Trump’s tax cut is nearly 0.9 percent of GDP. Ronald Reagan’s 1981 tax cut was 2.89 percent of GDP. Trump’s tax cut is even smaller than two of Barack Obama’s tax cuts as portion of GDP.
6. “Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses.” Oh, please. A raft of independent analyses show that more than three-quarters of the individual tax cuts will go to people who earn more than $200,000 a year in taxable income – the richest 5 percent of all taxpayers.
7. “We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.” Utter baloney. The average household would get a tax cut of $1,610 in 2018, according to the Tax Policy Center. From then on, the average household will save less and less in taxes.
8. “Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses — many of them thousands of dollars per worker.” Rubbish. Fewer than 2.5 percent of American workers have received one-time bonuses so far, and many of the companies offering bonuses are on Wall Street.
9. “Since we passed tax cuts … Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers.” In fact, Apple didn’t say whether its moves had been long planned or spurred by the tax changes, or even whether it’s increasing its level of U.S. investment from previous years.
10. "Chrysler is moving a major plant from Mexico to Michigan.”
Baloney. Chrysler’s plan to invest $1 billion in a factory in Michigan was in motion before Trump’s election, according to its CEO, who credits talks with the United Auto Workers in 2015.
11. “We are proud that we do more than any other country to help the needy, the struggling and the underprivileged all over the world.” Rubbish. As a percentage of our total economy, the United States is one of the least generous of all wealthy nations, ranking 22nd out of 29 – putting us between Slovenia and Portugal.
[Thanks to Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly of the Washington Post, Politifact, and other researchers.]
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