During an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) responded to the success of the U.S. economy under President Trump by claiming that “Americans are struggling” and their “wages are too low,” adding, “I love Trump is taking credit for a recovery that started under Obama.”
In the month of April the economy hit a 49-year-low for unemployment, in addition to that, the jobs report also showed that wages are rising and the average amount of hours being worked by Americans declined, meaning Americans are getting paid more for less work.
Booker tried to dodge a question about the thriving economy by pointing to unrelated issues that show how Americans are struggling and giving credit to former President Barack Obama.
Booker said, “First of all, I love Trump is taking credit for a recovery that started under Obama. Who is this economy going to work for? We have a tax plan that was all about giving the wealthiest plan more of a break. My vision for this country is target things like massive increasing income tax credit to actual workers. We have to make sure this is a shared recovery. Right now it definitely is not.”
While Booker clearly thinks Obama deserves credit for the current success of the economy, many others disagree and note that even Obama didn’t think this level of GDP growth was possible.
While the Republican tax cuts may be one large contributor to the economic growth, Booker thinks taxes should go up. He told Tapper that Americans will accept his economic strategy of higher taxes because they have “patriotism.
President Trump has argued that the 2020 election will come down to the economy, and said that his eventual Democratic opponent will have “to run against maybe the best Economy in the history of our Country (and MANY other great things)!”
The left loves to portray the president as xenophobic, but how is any of this racist if the beneficiaries are minorities and legal immigrants who often work in the jobs that are showing the most promise and are no longer worried about being replaced by an endless flow of cheap labor?
National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow denounced Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., Sunday after the 2020 White House candidate said President Trump was “taking credit for a recovery that started under [former President Barack] Obama.”
“What Mr. Booker and some others are saying is simply not true factually,” Kudlow told Fox News’ “America’s News HQ”.
Fox News reports:
Kudlow spoke two days after the publication of the April jobs report, which showed that the American economy added 263,000 jobs last month while the unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent, the lowest since 1969. Despite the rosy numbers, Booker insisted that the boom’s effects were not being felt across all economic levels.
Kudlow emphatically differed with Booker’s assessment of President Trump’s booming economy.
“I’m just gonna use the damn facts,” he told Fox News’ Leland Vittert. “On the wage front, [average hourly earnings are] rising 3.2 percent overall. The bottom [poorest] quarter [of workers], 4.4 percent increase, the top quarter, 3.5 percent [increase].”
“First of all, both are good and a rising tide is lifting all boats,” Kudlow added. “But the point I’m making is, it’s the blue collar people that have the fastest job expansion and it’s the blue collar people that have the best wage growth.”
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Kudlow reacted to the April jobs report in a video posted on the White House’s Instagram page Friday afternoon.
“Wow! Low unemployment, high jobs, high wages, big consumer confidence, major productivity and no inflation,” said an enthusiastic Kudlow while gesturing toward the camera. “It’s totally awesome. We’re killing it on the economy.”
“I don’t know how I had the energy to do that,” Kudlow said Sunday. “I just walked out and, I don’t know, man, let her rip. These are blowout numbers. The economy is going great guns and POTUS’ [Trump’s] policies, to be perfectly honest, his policies to rebuild this economy have entered us into a tremendous prosperity cycle. And I don’t see any end to it right now.”
