The poor economy hurt the incumbent, President George H. W. Bush, so the challenger won despite controversy about his personal life.
As we approach the 2018 mid-term elections, Americans once again have a major political figure, President Donald Trump, who has a controversial personal life. He is supposedly in legal jeopardy for directing his former attorney to pay “hush money” to two women alleging affairs. While some experts claim the payments were perfectly legal, others believe that there were campaign finance violations.
The media was so hysterical about the story that CNN and MSNBC used the words “impeach” or “impeachment” an amazing 222 times in one 18-hour period last week.
All the stories involving the payments, or even the Mueller investigation, involve speculation about the potential wrongdoing of President Trump. Even with 17 partisan Democrat attorneys and a budget of millions of dollars, Special Counsel Robert Mueller has not been able to identify, much less prove, President Trump’s involvement in Russian collusion of the 2016 election.
While the anti-Trump media are reporting these negative stories about the President non-stop, they are making a willful decision to ignore positive economic stories. The latest news is impressive as consumer confidence has hit an 18-year high. With consumer spending accounting for 70% of the overall economic activity, this is an important indicator of the success of President Trump’s policies.
As the President has cut regulations and taxes, the economy has soared. The overall unemployment rate is 3.9% with African Americans and Hispanics enjoying record low levels. The nation’s gross domestic product soared 4.1% in the last quarter, averaging more than 3% for the year, surpassing the highest total ever recorded under President Obama.
The President just renegotiated a new trade deal with Mexico, updating the flawed NAFTA agreement. In response, the stock market hit record highs. In addition, consumer spending is hitting record levels and Brian Cornell, the CEO of Target, recently said that “This is the best consumer environment I’ve seen in my career.”
With additional tax cuts, stronger trade deals and an enhanced effort to limit illegal immigration, the nation’s economy should continue to grow under President Trump’s policies. The key will be for Republicans to maintain control of the Congress. Otherwise, Democrats will take the country in a horrible direction of constant subpoenas of the Trump administration, impeachment hearings, ending “Deep State” investigations and a complete stop to the President’s positive economic policies.
Hopefully, between now and November, Americans will ignore the “Fake News” media and focus on the reality of their enhanced economic situation. The American people have a choice this November, continue the good economic times and vote for the President’s policies or reward obstructionism and socialism, two philosophies that dominate the Democratic Party. The stakes could not be higher for our economy or for our country.
Jeff Crouere is a native New Orleanian and his award winning program, “Ringside Politics,” airs locally at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and at 10:00 p.m. Sundays on PBS affiliate WLAE-TV, Channel 32, and from 7-11 a.m. weekdays on WGSO 990-AM & www.Wgso.com. He is a political columnist, the author of America's Last Chance and provides regular commentaries on the Jeff Crouere YouTube channel and on www.JeffCrouere.com. For more information, email him at [email protected]
