Some facts about the Trump, Obama economies

In his Jan. 22 letter, Doug Nusbaum criticizes another letter writer for stating that Barack Obama’s accomplishments were generally bad for our country. Mr. Nusbaum then tries to make the case for the opposite by giving some “so-called” facts. But, just like most of progressives, he has a problem with facts. Here they come.

Unemployment at the time Mr. Obama took office was 7.8 percent. When he left, it was 4.8 percent, a drop of 3 percentage points. But during Mr. Obama’s eight years in office, more than 14 million Americans left the workforce, and the labor participation rate fell in 2015 to 62.4 percent, the lowest since 1977.

The national debt in January 2009 was $10.6 trillion. By the end of 2016, it was around $19.6 trillion. If my arithmetic is correct, Mr. Obama added exactly $9 trillion to the national debt. As a comparison, George W. Bush inherited around $5.7 trillion in debt, which went up to $10.6 trillion by the time he left office.

In addition, during Mr. Obama’s eight years the economy never grew more than 3 percent annually, another fact.

I admit that I’m a yuge Trump fan. After the election, I would ask Trump haters how is it possible that a “dummy,” “moron,” “unsophisticated idiot,” “reality TV star,” etc. etc. beat the most brilliant and best Democratic presidential candidate of all time (Mr. Obama’s words)?

The answer is very simple: Barack Obama was the worst American president in history.