President Donald Trump has lashed out at the "fake news media" for ignoring and downplaying his economic accomplishments in the wake of the revelation that the economy created 2.1 million jobs in his first year in office.
Trump vowed during his 2016 campaign for president that he would be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”
Employment data released Friday show that the economy added 2.06 million jobs during his first full year in office.
Trump also late Friday praised the strength of the U.S. economy ahead of meetings at Camp David with congressional Republicans, the Associated Press reported.
Trump told reporters on the South Lawn that the "tax cuts are really kicking in" after Congress passed a package of tax cuts at the end of 2017. He notes that many companies have provided their employees with end-of-year bonuses.
And the president is praising the December jobs report, which found U.S. employers added 148,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate stayed at 4.1 percent, the lowest level since 2000.
The president is meeting with Republican congressional leaders and members of his Cabinet on Friday and Saturday to discuss the 2018 agenda.
Trump says, "We have a lot of things to work on, a lot of things to accomplish."
Meanwhile, stocks on Friday continued to march even deeper into record territory.
Wall Street’s main indexes extended their new year rally on Friday after weak December U.S. jobs data raised expectations that the Federal Reserve would stick to its policy of gradual interest rate hikes in 2018.
U.S. stocks kicked off 2018 on a strong note, carrying momentum from last year driven by a series of strong economic reports from across the globe.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were on track for their biggest percentage gains in more than a year on Friday, and the Dow in about a month, Reuters explained.
To be sure, countless other respected economic gurus are predicting that the economy will only continue to flourish under Trump.
Larry Kudlow, the Reagan administration economist who also advised the Trump campaign, said an investment boom is coming to the U.S. as tax reform provides more incentives for companies to spend more on factories and equipment.
“The tax cost of capital is coming way down,” he said on business news channel CNBC. “A lot of these calculations and break-even’s and so forth look a lot better now if you’re talking about a 21 percent corporate tax rate and the 100 percent expensing. We’re on the front end of an investment boom.”
The tax plan approved last month by Trump cut the corporate tax rate to 21 percent from 35 percent, and allows businesses to deduct the cost of any assets they acquire right away.
As for personal income taxes, the IRS is currently revising its tax withholding tables and plans to release them by the end of this month. By February, many workers should start seeing more take-home pay.
“As those tax cut eggs fertilize, you’ll see more in February when withholding rates come down,” Kudlow said.
Meanwhile, investment guru Steve Forbes recently predicted to Newsmax TV that the GOP tax-reform legislation will spark investment that ultimately lead to “a higher standard of living” for all Americans.
“We've had, as you know, subpar investment for a decade,” the chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media told the “The Income Generation Show.”
“And so, in order to get a higher standard of living, we need more investment. And that leads to enabling people to keep more of what they earn via higher earnings, higher salaries, higher pay in the future and you have to have investment,” said Forbes, author of "Reviving America: How Repealing Obamacare, Replacing the Tax Code and Reforming The Fed will Restore Hope and Prosperity."
“So they are laying the foundation for good, long-term growth in the business side,” Forbes told Newsmax TV.
(Newsmax wire services contributed to this report).
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