Trump's Big CON: 'I'll Grow the Economy & Balance the Budget'

UPDATE: Obama's was bigger than Trump's, GDP growth that is!

"President Trump received his first official estimate Thursday of how his proposals would affect the economy. The results were mediocre — especially compared with the numbers for President Barack Obama while he was in office.

Trump's proposals so far would only add about 0.1 percentage points to growth in gross domestic product, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). That would increase the pace of GDP growth to just 1.9 percent a year, much slower than the 3 percent administration officials have promised.

After a decade, GDP would only be about 0.7 percent greater if Trump's proposals were enacted, the CBO predicted. Obama's plans would have expanded GDP by substantially more. For instance, the budget he put forward in 2014 would have increased overall economic activity by 2.1 percent after a decade, the CBO said at the time."

Read the Washington Post, Let’s take a look at how the CBO thinks Trump’s proposals stack up against Obama’s.

It's easy to make false promises using rosy scenarios.

"The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that President Trump’s first budget plan would not eliminate the deficit over 10 years or expand the economy at all by 2021, casting doubt on the administration's controversial economic assumptions that were supposed to bolster key arguments for the White House’s agenda over the next year.

The CBO projected that the sweeping spending reductions on anti-poverty programs, housing, environmental protection and a number of other initiatives that the White House wants to cull back would still not be enough to eliminate the deficit by 2027.

In that year, the deficit would be $720 billion under the White House's budget, the CBO said. The White House asserted the government would have a budget surplus in 2027 if its policies were enacted, bringing in more money through revenue than it spent. That's a gap of more than $700 billion in just one year between the CBO and White House.

This contrasts sharply with the White House’s internal estimates, which argued that cutting taxes would create an economic boom that solved many of the country’s budget problems.

The White House also estimated that its budget changes would lead the economy to grow by 3 percent per year. The CBO found, however, that economic growth would average only 1.9 percent per year under the White House's plan."

Read the Washington Post, White House budget wouldn’t eliminate deficit or do much to expand economy, CBO says.

Trump doesn't read much, so it is helpful to him that the article included two graphs: