Opinion What I Learned From a List of Trump Accomplishments
"BULLSHIT. How convenient to evaluate him on just his first two years. You wouldn't do the same for A Dem president. "
Facts are vital. But they are not sufficient.
Illustration by Nicholas Konrad/The New York Times, photograph by Getty Images
By Farah Stockman
Ms. Stockman is a member of the editorial board.
Sept. 11, 2020
Don’t ask me why, but I’ve spent the past week fact-checking a list of Donald Trump’s accomplishments, as compiled by one of his loyal supporters. OK, if you must know: A friend asked me to because she didn’t believe this list could be true, and she was upset that someone she respected had posted it.
“What has Trump actually done in the last three years?” was the headline. It has been shared more than 100,000 times, which most likely translates to millions of views.
And yet, the more I delved into the list, the more I understood the limitations of a simple fact check. This particular list of pro-Trump facts cherry-picked information that paints Mr. Trump as a liberal. Item No. 13 notes that he signed “the biggest wilderness protection & conservation bill in a decade.” Item No. 12 says, “Low-wage workers are benefiting from higher minimum wages.”
There is something to celebrate in this tacit admission that clean water and decent pay are widely popular, even in that alternate universe of alternative facts where Trump supporters are said to reside. Maybe we aren’t so different after all.
Facts are vital. But they are insufficient. A bit of context is usually required to produce the truth. For instance, Item No. 44 — “More than seven million jobs created since the election.” It’s true that the country had seven million more jobs in January of 2020 than existed in 2017, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. But anyone who credits Mr. Trump for creating seven million jobs ought to credit President Barack Obama with the eight million jobs created during the last three years of his administration.
A large swath of items on the list credit Mr. Trump for the booming economy, which is no longer booming, because of the coronavirus pandemic. Items No. 88 through No. 93 all relate to “lowest-ever unemployment” numbers — a stark illustration of just how much of the case for a Trump second term rested on cheerful economic figures that are no longer valid.
About a quarter of the items on the list relate to Mr. Trump signing bills that Congress passed, many of which he had nothing to do with. For instance, item No. 5 praises him for signing a law that legalized hemp. That’s true, but it was one small provision in a giant farm bill .. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/12/14/the-farm-bill-hemp-and-cbd-explainer/ . How much credit does the president really deserve for that?
Item No. 1 lauds the president for giving federal recognition to the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians in Montana, a designation they have sought for more than a century. But when I called up Gerald Gray, chairman of the Little Shell Tribe, he told me that the credit goes to the two Montana senators, Jon Tester, a Democrat, and Steve Daines, a Republican, who managed to tuck the tribal designation provision into a massive military spending bill .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/11/us/politics/house-ndaa-space-force-leave.html .
--- [Joe Biden's quiet success goes much further than Bidenomics The best commentary I've seen touting Biden's accomplishments and refuting the ageist attacks on him. Many more good reads in the whole article. P - Taking office in the middle of a deadly pandemic and after an insurrection with a razor-thin margin in both chambers of Congress, Joe Biden's legislative achievements include the American Rescue Plan, which staved off an economic collapse and created a massive rollout of life-saving vaccines. P - Despite much handwringing and gnashing of teeth that it would drive the economy into the ditch, it has done the opposite, creating 12 million jobs, the most of any single presidential term in history. Additionally, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act created major legacy-defining progress on domestic manufacturing, infrastructure, climate change mitigation, deficit reduction, corporate taxes and out-of-pocket health costs. After another paroxysm of gun violence, Biden even managed to usher through the first bipartisan gun safety bill in 30 years. Did he get everything on his agenda done? Of course not. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=172296221] ---
As I went down the list, I found genuine accomplishments. Several items related to the First Step Act .. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/11/opinion/first-step-act-drug-offenders.html .. criminal justice reform — a meaningful piece of legislation that shortens mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, putting a dent in mass incarceration. The administration deserves credit for championing it, as does the bipartisan group of criminal justice reform advocates who have pushed for it for years.
Item No. 113 relates to the Trump administration’s imposition of tariffs on China for the theft of intellectual property, and other unfair trade practices. Privately, I have heard American businessmen say this needed to be done. But the jury is still out on how it ends. Even Trump supporters don’t want a prolonged trade war with China. (Case in point: Item No. 71 of the list notably touts “$250 billion in new trade and investment deals in China.”)
Another big accomplishment? A massive tax cut for the wealthy and for corporations, if you are into that kind of thing. Item No. 59 refers to “529 college savings plans for elementary and secondary education” — a tax subsidy for the wealthy to send their kids to private schools. Item No. 84 relates to companies that brought back about a trillion dollars from overseas. That’s true. It is also true that the bill will increase the U.S. debt by at least $1.5 trillion, a shocking amount during prosperous times.
Once you strip away the misleading claims from this list of accomplishments, you are left with what Mr. Trump has delivered: tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations — No. 84. Deregulation for banks and businessmen — No. 97. Judges for the evangelicals — No. 109. Tariffs on Chinese steel for the steelworkers — No. 113. And after those tariffs sparked a trade war,bailouts for farmers — No. 72. He moved the embassy to Jerusalem, for conservative Jews and evangelicals — No. 110.
To Mr. Trump’s supporters, those are real accomplishments. But are they worth more than Mr. Trump’s failures, during a deadly pandemic .. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/08/12/us/covid-deaths-us.html ? More than his broken promises .. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/?ruling=true ? More than what he has destroyed? That’s the question facing voters in November. Maybe this list of his true accomplishments needs to be weighed against a list of what he has dismantled over these last four years. Anybody got one? I’d be happy to fact-check it.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
