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Stephens: The often wrong but never humbled

In this March 4, 2019, file photo, a worker cleans a jet bridge before passengers boarded an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Ore., at Paine Field in Everett, Wash. U.S. employers had a solid month of job growth in April, buoyed by a resilient economy that has confounded concerns that 2019 would begin with a slowdown. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
In this March 4, 2019, file photo, a worker cleans a jet bridge before passengers boarded an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Ore., at Paine Field in Everett, Wash. U.S. employers had a solid month of job growth in April, buoyed by a resilient economy that has confounded concerns that 2019 would begin with a slowdown. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File) In this March 4, 2019, file photo, a worker cleans a jet bridge before passengers boarded an Alaska Airlines flight to Portland, Ore., at Paine Field in Everett, Wash. U.S. employers had a solid month of job growth in April, buoyed by a resilient economy that has confounded concerns that 2019 would begin with a slowdown. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

By Bret Stephens / The New York Times 4 min read

For more than two years, Democrats and their media friends have confidently insisted the U.S. economy under President Donald Trump (a) would crash and burn; or (b) benefits only the few; or (c) was fake; or, failing all of that, was just (d) the lucky beneficiary of policies put into place under Barack Obama.

None of these arguments is tenable today. Anyone seriously interested in defeating Trump at the polls next year should stop making them.

The very pleasant reality of the U.S. economy was neatly captured in the headline of Neil Irwin’s recent analysis in The New York Times: “The Economy That Wasn’t Supposed to Happen: Booming Jobs, Low Inflation.” Unemployment is at 3.6%, a 50-year low. Job creation remains strong. Average hourly earnings are up 3.2% over last year. Inflation is 1.6%.

“After more than two years of the Trump administration, warnings that trade wars and erratic management style would throw the economy off course have proved wrong so far,” Irwin writes, “and tax cuts and deregulation are most likely part of the reason for the strong growth rates in 2018 and the beginning of 2019.”

Irwin allows that the economy could slow as the effects of the tax cuts fade. That’s always possible. But for now, the economy is in even better shape than the headline data suggest.