Trump’s Growth Plan to Overcome Fed Obstacles

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) just release the first estimate for GDP growth for the fourth quarter of last year. The 2.1% growth rate for the quarter means that the growth rate for the entire year 2019 was 2.3%. That’s below what President Trump promised.

Trump said that his policies would result in annual economic growth exceeding 3%, something not seen since 2005. He said that the combination of the elimination of counter-productive regulations and tax cuts for all Americans would be the policies that accelerated growth. What happened?

In 2017, through executive order, Trump was able to eliminate hundreds of regulations that serve to be a burden to economic growth. He did that in the early months of 2017. By June, the beginning of the third quarter, Trump’s actions were providing positive results, as growth increased to more than 3%.

Growth remained in the 3% range for the next four quarters. Then at the end of 2018 growth slowed to just above 1%. Growth rebounded in the first quarter of 2019 but then slowed to just above 2% for the remainder of the year.