Fact-checking Trump's claims at his tax reform event
In pitching his administration's tax reform plan Wednesday, President Trump made a misleading statement about the Obama administration and did not mention his prior position on an earlier tax overhaul.
Speaking from Springfield, Missouri, Mr. Trump claimed that the economy never hit 3 percent growth under President Obama. This came as the Commerce Department announced earlier in the day that the economy grew at a 3 percent pace in the last quarter from April to June. He promised Wednesday to "go much higher than 3 percent."
Obama never had a full calendar year with annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 3 percent or higher. But there were several quarters in which it exceeded that pace. According to PolitiFact, between the third quarters of 2009 and 2010, GDP growth was 3.4 percent and from the first quarters of 2014 and 2015, GDP growth was 3.3 percent.
Mr. Trump has made similar claims before. Just days before last November's election, he said that Obama is "the first president in modern history not to have a single year of 3 percent growth." While that is true, it can be misleading since he had several quarters of higher growth.
During the event Wednesday, the president also praised the tax reform signed into law by President Reagan in 1986 even though as a real estate developer, Mr. Trump opposed it, saying "so much work would be created by getting rid of that horror show."
"I truly feel this country is in a depression, not a recession...people are kidding themselves if they think it's a recession," Mr. Trump said at a hearing before the House Budget Committee in 1991. "The real estate business is in a recession, one reason we're there is because of what happened in 1986 and the changes that happened."
"I truly believe you wouldn't have the savings and loan crisis you have right now," he added. "I don't think you would have had many of the banking problems you have now under '86. The insurance companies are going to be in very deep trouble. You have some very deep problems that can be corrected by simply putting incentives back."
CBS News' Emily Tillett and Blair Guild contributed to this report.
