Dear Editor,

Although President Trump, who for the record, is the only individual in the history of our great nation to serve in the highest office in our land with literally no prior political, governmental or military experience, likes to incessantly pontificate that “his economy is the best in our nation’s history,” when in fact President Obama, who President Trump has vigorously, and often criticized for having a “weak economy,” actually had created 7.5 million jobs during his final 34 months in office, whereas President Trump’s first 34 months in office saw 6.5 million jobs created, which amounts to over 30,000 more jobs being created by President Obama during the aforementioned comparable periods.

Also, during the Obama Presidency, the U.S. unemployment rate declined from 9.6 percent, as a result of the “Great Recession” under President George W. Bush, to 4.9 percent upon his leaving office, a decrease of 4.7 percent. Whereas, during the Trump presidency to date the nation’s unemployment rate has declined from 4.9 percent to 3.5 percent, a decrease of 1/4 percent.

Recall that President Trump has vigorously criticized such statistics under President Obama, referring to the aforementioned data as “inaccurate,” but refers to such statistics during his presidency often, apparently now as he considers them to be legitimate even though the data is, and has always been, compiled by the non-partisan U.S. Department of Labor.

Also, per the U.S. Treasury Department our national deficit has increased by over 26 percent thus far during the current fiscal year, and has increased by approximately 50 percent since President Trump took office, surpassing the $1 trillion mark, which is historically unprecedented when our nation is not at war or our economy is not in deep recession.

The massive tax cuts granted by President Trump, which have inordinately benefited the wealthiest among us, have obviously not “paid for themselves” as President Trump had promised, but have greatly contributed to our unprecedented deficit and national debt, which now represent a larger share of our economy than since the World War II years.

Historically, Republicans for a great many years were very strong advocates for low national debt and deficits. However, this strongly appears to no longer be the case in the age of Trump.

Also, President Trump and his Republican cohorts often refer to Congressional Democrats as “do nothing Democrats,” when in fact the democratically controlled U.S. House of Representatives has passed over 400 bills since their assumption of power in 2018, of which only 70 have been passed by the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate, with 10 of which being for the formal remaining of selected federal facilities, as they are being blocked by Senate Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Traditionally, Congress has, on average, passed 150-250 bills per year, per vox.com.

As the usage of “alternate facts” has been paramount by President Trump and his supporters during his administration, it is more imperative than ever that the truth and verifiable facts must be diligently pursued and respected.

Richard Hord

Martins Ferry