Debunking Randy Shipley's anti-Trump Argument of August 2019 Part 2

Randy Shipley: [Name redacted] Some facts for you (I have a ton if you really want to debate facts)

If your past and current arguments are indications, I could confidently say that you don't have a ton of facts. What you do have; however, is a ton of cherry-picked data and a ton of propaganda. I will demonstrate that in my reply to your current response.

Randy Shipley:  - Job growth down under Trump - in his first 29 months as president 800,000 less jobs were created than in the 29 months immediately before he became president. 

This statement is misleading. The job growth rate has been steady since it dipped in 2009/2010. This means that even if there were fewer jobs created now than before, the fact of the matter is that more jobs are being created, and more people are employed now than when Obama was in the White House. Unemployment rates have gone down at record levels. Worker participation in the market has gone up at levels not seen over the past few decades.

Bottom line, more people are working now than the number of people working when the last president was in office. 

Note: This has changed effective the negative impact of COVID-19, but were applicable in the summer of 2019. These series of posts represent replies made in 2019. 

Randy Shipley: Debt skyrocketing under Trump 

Debt has skyrocketed under each president. Or, did you forget that debt jumped to record levels under the last President? I have copies of financial letters talking about how Clinton was ballooning the debt compared to his predecessors. You advanced a nonargument.

Randy Shipley: - Obama reduced deficit from 2009 (set by previous admin) by almost $800 B a year by the time he set his last budget. 

You're wrong on two counts.

First, you're confusing debt with the deficit. Deficits and surpluses involve government expenditures. If the government spends more than what it takes in, we have deficits. If it spends less than what it takes in, we have surpluses.

Even if we have a surplus, we still have the debt. The surpluses that we had in the 1990s didn't change the fact that we still had the national debt.

Second, the deficit declined from 2004 to 2007, even with both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars taking place. It wasn't until 2007 that the deficit climbed again.

Keep in mind that it's Congress, not the President, who is in charge of the budget. Congress, and not the President, takes action that determines whether we end up with surpluses or deficits.

The Democrats won in 2006 and took both houses of Congress starting in 2007. Notice that it was this year that the deficit started to shoot up.

Randy Shipley: Trump Tariffs are costing U.S. consumers BILLIONS (no, China does not pay the tariffs, U.S. companies do that import). 

Not quite on the part of the consumers. President Trump placed tariffs on products imported from China. As you mentioned, those tariffs are paid by the companies that are importing those goods.

Now, they could raise the price on the consumer to make up for the tariff... But they'd be shooting themselves on the foot. Why? Other companies importing from countries not subject to the tariff would be able to economically run circles around the company paying tariffs.

The onus is on those corporations and companies, that run operations in China, to move their operations out of China and to another country... This is one of the intentions of the tariffs. This, in turn, would pressure China to negotiate a better trading arrangement than the one that we have now.

With things as they were before President Trump became president, both jobs and money were being siphoned out of the U.S. It made economic sense to make products in China and to sell them over here. But that came with China engaging in practices aimed at putting us at a disadvantage.

We stood to lose billions either way. The difference is that President Trump's actions are frustrating China's efforts to knock the U.S. out of the economic, and ultimately political and military driver's seat.

Randy Shipley: Socialism? I guess it is ok for Trump to prop up farmers with BILLIONS so he can fight his trade war? 

You don't understand what socialism is if you assume that money provided to the farmers, or to corporations is "socialism". That's not socialism. Others on your side of the argument also advance this erroneous argument.

Socialism, as practiced in other countries, requires a command economy, with the government dictating how the economy should run. It also relies on paying people according to their needs rather than according to their skills, availability, etc.