Trump inherits economy with head of steam.

As President Biden leaves office, he is handing an enormous Christmas gift to his successor, Donald Trump.

The gift is an economy that is in pretty good shape.

The unemployment rate is about 4%; the inflation rate that popped up to 9% in the Covid aftermath is down to less than 3%; the growth of the national economy (GDP) leads all other economies in the world running at more than 3% in the last two quarters; and the stock markets boomed in the last two years to the benefit of the retirement accounts of most American families.

On the campaign trail, Trump convinced nearly half of American voters that the economy was not in good shape by citing the cost of bread and eggs at grocery stores. He was not wrong about that factoid, but it was hardly the whole picture of the economy.

We all know it is the free markets that determine prices of consumer goods, and the government does not have much it can do to change that picture. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris also raised a false promise in her campaign that she would eliminate price gouging by retailers. She knew full well that tools like price controls never work very well.

Trump is not even in office yet and has already backed off on his pledge to do something about consumer prices. He’s already walking back that campaign B.S.

Trump, a master of braggadocio, also claimed during the campaign that he had the best economy of any president, and that simply has no relationship to the truth. The economies grew faster under Presidents Clinton, Kennedy and Johnson. The economic growth under Trump was average at best at 2.3%, well below the average for presidents at 3.8%.

Not only did the inflation rate come down under Biden and Federal Reserve Chairman Powell, real wages went up for the average worker. That healthy dynamic came too late in the campaign to be fully understood by voters, but it was nonetheless a very positive trend that Trump inherits.

Outside the economy, Biden made big mistakes, such as loosening the southern border control during his first two years and leaving Afghanistan without a measured strategy for withdrawal. He should have listened to his leaders in border control and in the Pentagon. It was pure hubris to not listen to those in the know.

His biggest piece of hubris, of course, was not looking in the mirror and owning up to his declining mental acuity. His wife Jill and his closest advisors in the Oval Office bear a huge responsibility for not putting that mirror in front of his eyes and convincing him to leave on a high note after his first term.

We know now, thanks to a hugely inciteful article in the Wall Street Journal, that they were propping him up all during his presidency. They, too, wanted to stay in the Oval Office, so they faked his loss of competency on him and also on the American people. The emperor had no clothes, as his sad debate performance finally proved.

All that said, President Biden and his lieutenants provided relative stability in our governance for four years, protected our institutions, and dealt professionally with issues affecting jobs, the economy and our international alliances.

His even-handedness and empowerment of competent leaders like Gina Raimondo in Commerce, Antony Blinken in Foreign Affairs and Lloyd Austin III in Defense provided stability in a tumultuous world.

Job creation grew sharply month-over-month. Wages grew month-over-month. Inflation steadily dropped. Innovation flourished in the technology sector. And retirement accounts jumped by 20% to 30%.

There is still a major U.S. challenge of improving the prosperity of the lower economic quartile of Americans. But Donald Trump and his announced cabinet of billionaires will not have their plight front of mind.

You can bet your last dollar that Trump will be bragging about his impact on the economy when in office. He won’t comment on the fact that he was already on third base in terms of the economy. Note that he himself was born on third base.

He will fudge the economic numbers, for sure. That creates a tall order for objective truth tellers who believe in facts. The challenge will be to illuminate the real economic numbers over the next four years.