The true state of the Union
On Jaunary 30, 2018, Donald J. Trump will deliver his very first State of the Union (SOTU) address to a joint session of the Congress. People across the nation are going to boycott the address by refusing to watch it on television. Considering that the SOTU address will be shown on ABC, CBS, CNN, C-SPAN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC, PBS and Univision, Trump is probably planning to tout the ratings his address gets. The boycott is an attempt to frustrate him. To send the message that those of us who are "resisting" are not happy with how things are going.
So what is the real "state of our union." Precarious. That's the one-word description I feel is most appropriate. What will the Moron-in-Chief say in his SOTU address? That depends on whether we get "regular" Trump or "unleaded" Trump which is also known as teleprompter Trump. As pointed out by Doyle McManus in a L.A. Times piece, when we are treated to teleprompter Trump he has a habit of stopping his recitation of the words written for him to utter, in order to remark "so true" as if he was reading those words for the first time.
He will take credit for a vast improvement in the nation's economy, which is an outright prevarication. He has done little to improve the economy as the first four or five months of what happened after he was inaugurated had nothing to do with anything he did or said. He will tout an unemployment rate that is at the lowest point since it hit 3.9% in September of 2000.
The problem with the low unemployment rate as a metric of our economy is that it does not include people who have given up on seeking work. A more accurate metric is the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR). As of December 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a LFPR of 62.7%. What does that number mean? It is a measure of the population aged 16-64 who are able to work, who are working. 62.7% is the lowest rate since January of 1978.
He will tout tax reform. He did push a bill through the Congress and cut tax rates. The problem with what was done is that this tax reform plan gave much more in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, and it was paid for by borrowing rather than the spending cuts he bragged about imposing during his campaign. Any fool can cut taxes by borrowing more money. Estimates are that our national debt will increase by $1.5 trillion over the next decade to pay for these tax reductions.
According to the U.S. Treasury's website where you can buy government securities directly (www.treasurydirect.gov), in the fiscal year that ended on 9/30/2017, we spent $458.5 billion in interest expense on the national debt. Because some of that interest expense is "paid" to the money that was "borrowed" from the Social Security "trust fund", that number is misleading. The actual amount of money paid out from federal coffers to finance the national debt during FY2017 is closer to $266.8 billion. Another way to look at this is that 6.7% of all federal outlays are expended on financing our nation's borrowing. Thanks to the Trump Tax Plan, that expense (the 4th largest single item in the federal budget) will only increase in the future.
A president who brags about having the biggest button for the deployment of nuclear weapons on his desk makes the entire world less safe. The Doomsday Clock has been set at 2 minutes to midnight by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. That is the lowest setting since 1953, which was caused by the U.S.'s first test of a thermonuclear weapon.
Our government is in dysfunctional distress. Approval ratings of Congress and Donald Trump are at historic lows. Precarious is indeed the state of our union.
So what is the real "state of our union." Precarious. That's the one-word description I feel is most appropriate. What will the Moron-in-Chief say in his SOTU address? That depends on whether we get "regular" Trump or "unleaded" Trump which is also known as teleprompter Trump. As pointed out by Doyle McManus in a L.A. Times piece, when we are treated to teleprompter Trump he has a habit of stopping his recitation of the words written for him to utter, in order to remark "so true" as if he was reading those words for the first time.
He will take credit for a vast improvement in the nation's economy, which is an outright prevarication. He has done little to improve the economy as the first four or five months of what happened after he was inaugurated had nothing to do with anything he did or said. He will tout an unemployment rate that is at the lowest point since it hit 3.9% in September of 2000.
The problem with the low unemployment rate as a metric of our economy is that it does not include people who have given up on seeking work. A more accurate metric is the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR). As of December 2017, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a LFPR of 62.7%. What does that number mean? It is a measure of the population aged 16-64 who are able to work, who are working. 62.7% is the lowest rate since January of 1978.
He will tout tax reform. He did push a bill through the Congress and cut tax rates. The problem with what was done is that this tax reform plan gave much more in tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, and it was paid for by borrowing rather than the spending cuts he bragged about imposing during his campaign. Any fool can cut taxes by borrowing more money. Estimates are that our national debt will increase by $1.5 trillion over the next decade to pay for these tax reductions.
According to the U.S. Treasury's website where you can buy government securities directly (www.treasurydirect.gov), in the fiscal year that ended on 9/30/2017, we spent $458.5 billion in interest expense on the national debt. Because some of that interest expense is "paid" to the money that was "borrowed" from the Social Security "trust fund", that number is misleading. The actual amount of money paid out from federal coffers to finance the national debt during FY2017 is closer to $266.8 billion. Another way to look at this is that 6.7% of all federal outlays are expended on financing our nation's borrowing. Thanks to the Trump Tax Plan, that expense (the 4th largest single item in the federal budget) will only increase in the future.
A president who brags about having the biggest button for the deployment of nuclear weapons on his desk makes the entire world less safe. The Doomsday Clock has been set at 2 minutes to midnight by the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. That is the lowest setting since 1953, which was caused by the U.S.'s first test of a thermonuclear weapon.
Our government is in dysfunctional distress. Approval ratings of Congress and Donald Trump are at historic lows. Precarious is indeed the state of our union.
posted by me at 5:55 AM
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