Catherine Rampell of the Washington Post says it is McConnell’s and Ryan’s fault that the federal government shut down because they haven’t passed a budget. Of course she says that it is their fault, because according to almost all journalists it is always the Republicans’ fault. I do not recall Rampell or other writers ever blaming Obama and Democrats when they went for years without passing an actual budget and ran up massive a massive federal debt, continually raising the debt ceiling. 

Did Ryan and McConnell tell Democrats they couldn’t vote for the budget that many voted for a few days later, or was it Schumer and Pelosi who kept the Democrats on the plantation?

I believe the following comment says it all about Rampell’s ability to analyze anything:

Meanwhile, the markets look nervous.

Yet instead of laying the groundwork now to prevent default, McConnell and Ryan engage in hashtag wars. They’re cutting more taxes. Ryan is even fantasizing about slashing entitlements.

McConnellRyanShutdown is bad enough. Let’s hope #McConnellRyanCrash isn’t next.

If the stock market looks nervous now, I would love to see what a good or calm market would look like. The market continually hits all-time highs because profits are rising and expectations are that they will rise further because Trump has actually reduced regulations and allowed businesses to keep more of the money they earn. 

Consumer confidence, small business confidence, large business confidence and home builder confidence are extremely high. 

Manufacturing employment is up, energy production has surpassed Saudi Arabia and Russia, minority employment and women’s employment is way up. 

Almost all individuals are going to get more money in their pockets for eight years and millions have already received bonuses, raises and enhanced benefits. 

I wonder if Rampell could explain which of these things that Trump has done will lead to a crash. 

Meanwhile, as Trump and Republicans get the blame for everything, Obama gets credit for things he didn’t do. Obama gets credit for bringing the economy out of the recession even though it came out 130 days after he took office before his policies could have had anything but a minimal effect. 

Now he gets credit for the current fast growing economy. I wonder why there was an eight year delay in his policies starting to work? For the past year we were told that Trump was too optimistic about growth and the economy was going to continue to grow at the slow pace of Obama’s eight years.  

So, if Obama’s policies are why we are having over 3% growth for over three quarters (and it looks like it will continue) why didn’t they predict it?

Rampell actually wrote an article a few months ago saying that experts say the long term growth rate would be 1.8%. I wonder when she will admit that the experts were wrong and that reduced regulations and allowing the private sector to have more money will produce substantially more growth than otherwise and that it will also give the government more money, not less as predicted. 

To give you a sense of how ridiculous that is, the Federal Reserve’s median forecast for long-term growth is 1.8 percent, thanks in part to demographic challenges facing the country.

Of course anti-Trumpers live in a delusional World. As Trump’s policies have lifted workers’ actual pay, as pipelines are opened, as coal production has increased, as energy production as a whole as gone up, as minority employment has gone up, as business and consumer confidence has gone up, they say Trump has hurt working people. That is just nuts.  

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said Trump has done nothing to invest in America’s infrastructure, has rejected plans to revitalize the coal community and has been too timid on trade.

“Broken promises are bad enough, but President Trump has used his office to actively hurt working people,” Trumka said. 

Trumka cited the Republican tax plan, the administration’s decision to delay the Obama-era overtime rule and its move to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program as policies that have hurt workers.

I do not recall Trumka saying Obama hurt working people when median pay was stagnant, as the labor force participation rate hit a forty year low, as Obama said manufacturing would never come back, as Obama regulated the heck out of the economy, as he blocked pipelines and as he threatened to bankrupt coal companies and destroy fossil fuels. 

Obamacare also massively increased premiums, out of pocket expenses and deductibles which reduced the amount of money that people had to spend on other things, especially necessities considering median income was flat during his eight years. However, people around Washington DC did very well.

I would ask Rampell, Trumka and all other anti Trumpers and Obama supporters to name any of Obama’s policies that actually lifted up the overall economy and gave people the opportunity to move up the economic ladder instead of making the government more powerful and making more people dependent on government. I can’t think of any.