TRUMP’S IDEAS ARE WHAT’S TOTALLY BANKRUPT

…The New NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium (Complete in 2017)

 

It is frightening how ignorant one of our presidential candidates is today.

 

I am getting sick and tired of Donald Trump lying about the shape that this country is in today.

 

I am saying to this man that consistently says things that aren’t true, “Please shut your mouth if you can’t tell the truth!”

 

Let’s start with his statement to the Washington Post’s editorial board.  Per Mr. Trump: “I think that we are not in the position that we used to be. I think we were a very powerful, very wealthy country. And we’re a poor country now. . . . We’re spending . . . to protect other countries. We’re not spending it on ourselves.” 

 

The US is not a poor country.  For some proof, in 1950, the US GDP (gross domestic product) produced $2.2 trillion of goods and services as measured by the inflation-adjusted “2009 dollars.” In 2015, the US GDP was $16.3 trillion, that's more than seven times greater.  Even if you consider the fact that the population has doubled since 1950, that still makes our economy today almost 4 times larger than in 1950.

 

How about where we are when compared to other successful countries?

 

Well, the latest numbers we have are from 2014 where Germany was only at 84% of the US economy, Britain was at 75% and Japan was at 69%.

 

Unfortunately, even though this is all true, many Americans listen to Mr. Trump and they believe what he says about the US being poor.

 

Yes, it is true that America still has too much poverty.  But what is causing people to think that we aren’t doing so well is that we aren’t growing at the rate we did after the Second World War.  Back then, the country regularly grew at a rate of 3% to 5% every year.  Ever since the 2008-2009 Great Recession, the economy has only been growing at about 2% per year.  After the 2008 financial panic, that event also amplified American fears of insecurity and loss.

 

Americans have to understand that our exceptional dominance immediately after World War II was expected to disappear once Europe and Japan were totally rebuilt, and in many ways, it did.

 

Now just think of what most American households have today that we didn’t have back in 1950.  Today we have antibiotics, television, jet travel, central air conditioning, household appliances such as washers, dryers, microwave ovens, plus smartphones and personal computers, just to name a few.

 

Think about the fact that when NATO was founded, there was no US Interstate Highway System or Social Security.  These were both enacted in 1956.  There was no Medicare or Medicaid, that came in 1965.

 

Trump says “we don’t spend capital on ourselves”, that’s a bunch of Bull! 

 

 

In 1955, US defense spending took 62% of federal spending, and Social Security and similar spending on the American people were at 21%. But in 2015, defense was at 16% and payments for programs for individual Americans including Social Security were at 72% of all federal spending.  That's spending on the American people.

 

Trump is correct, as have been almost every president, that our allies should beef up their militaries and spend more on their own security issues. Since 1945, the US military has shielded our allies in the hope that prosperity and trade would promote democratic institutions and political stability, and it worked.  This was a decision that was made during the Cold War era against the Soviet Union.  But now, the free world’s shielding is for dealing with terrorist threats.  And the US, with the unwise invasion of Iraq, has to take more responsibility for helping make the middle east unstable.

 

With this becoming a globalized world and a globalized economy, the chance for the US to grow at a 3% to 5% annually may never happen again.  We are only feeling so poor because our stunted economic growth cannot satisfy all of our nation’s demands.  Remember, that growth was back when we also didn’t have climate change issues and such a dependence on foreign fossil fuels.

 

But the truth is that we still are not poor.  Our nation’s priorities have changed since the 1950’s and globalization means that we can no longer act as a totally separate nation that doesn’t have to deal with other countries.

 

Donald Trump’s ideas for America are totally bankrupt and out of date from a world of the past, and ideas that could never work in today’s globalized environment.

 

Think about it.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016