How Does Trump Compare to Previous Presidents?

I read this morning an article in my local newspaper: U.S. Trade Deficit Widens to $50.1B",  It stated that the Trade Deficit has been increasing the last two months "despite efforts by President Donald Trump to bring it down by renegotiating trade agreements and imposing taxes on imports".  Even though this is only two data points, it did get me thinking about my previous evaluations of Presidential performance on budget items and other financial measures.  For those who have read these previous posts, I will use the same categories of receipts and outlays based on Trump's first budget and forecast, which includes one year of actual spending.  Although Trump's budget forecast only goes through his 2023 (7 years), it should reflect his priorities which have been clearly stated and actions already taken.  To note, his forecasts likely do not include the impact of his trade policy decisions which are reflected in the Trade Deficit article referenced above.

As before, I downloaded the entire budget detail from the "Office of Management and Budget".  These data were analyzed using statistical techniques to establish the Annual Compound Growth Rate (CAGR) for each presidential term.  There has been one four year term for each political party (Carter, Bush1) and I have calculated Trumps CAGR using all 7 years included in the 2018 Federal Budget (through 2023).

I also launched this analysis as a way of trying to confirm (or disprove) the many comments from the Trump Administration concerning Trump's superior performance relative to previous Presidents.  Here are some top line findings.  Combining Presidential performance on the growth rates of all financial results, Trump is in a 3 way tie with Nixon/Ford and Bush 2 for SECOND TO LAST place among all Presidents. Bettering Trump are Reagan, Obama, Carter, Kennedy/Johnson and Clinton.  Bush 1 has the lowest score of all Presidents.  The scoring is based on assigning 2 points for best performance in a category and 1 point for second best.  Also, -2 points for worst performance in a category and -1 point for second worst.  (Good is considered high growth in Receipts and GDP; Bad is high growth in Spending and Deficit/Debt).

Looking at the individual categories, Trump is NOT best in any category!  Lately, we have heard much discussion of GDP, of which he has the 3rd LOWEST growth rate.  This happens to be below the Republican average growth.  He is at the Republican average for Real GDP Growth.  Below you will find the complete table of results.

Trump's growth rates for all categories are in the middle of the pack in most cases.  However, he has the worst (highest) growth rate in Supplemental Spending (off-budget).  With the recently passed tax plan, there are still 3 Presidents with slower growth in Individual Taxes (Bush 2, Bush 1 and Reagan) and 2 Presidents with slower growth in Corporate Taxes (Bush 1 and Nixon).  Notice that compared to Obama, Trump has reduced Tax Receipt growth by 1/3, while at the same time quadrupling the growth in Outlays (spending).

Here are a couple of examples of how Compound Annual Growth Rates are determined.  First is the graph of Trump's GDP that we have mentioned above:

The green, white and red sections around the data are statistical limits which are helpful in determining if all of the data fall within a "normal" range which helps identify "outliers".  If there are no outliers, the growth rate is determined.  It can be found in the data box, just above the blue highlighted number.

One of the sub-categories of "Outlays" or spending is Total Net Interest on the Federal Debt which is shown below:

In this case the Trump's growth of the Interest on the Debt is 15.8% compounded annually.  As you can see the slope of line is quite a bit steeper, reflecting the higher debt growth and higher interest rates that are likely to increase with such high national debt.  This has not been much discussed in the press but is a good summary of Trump's tax plan.

Keep in mind that 6 of the 7 Trump years analyzed are FORECASTED numbers. Based on this and the likely hood that forecasted numbers are based on optimistic assumptions, it will be critical to reassess these conclusions as actual spending is posted in the years to come.

My belief is that success in government should be evaluated not by orders signed or regulations reduced, but by the financial health of the country and its citizens.  There is not evidence that a "best ever" claim is yet deserved.

Will Trump's Troops on the Border Really Help?

Trump has announced and obtained DOD approval to put 4,000 National Guard Troops at the Mexican Border to reduce the number of illegal immigrants entering the US.  Not that he has ever used data or logic to make such decisions, so I thought I would try to put his decision up against some actual data!

First, I downloaded aprehensions for the Southwest Region from 2000 to 2018 FY to date ,by month,  from US Customs and Border Protection as well as annual data from 1960 to 2017.

For context, take a look at the annual data in simple graph form below:

The first thing to notice is that aprehensions had been steadily increasing from 1960 - 2000 after which a rapid decline began.  For context, in 1979, Reagan campaigned on creating a North American Trade Agreement and through the 1980's negotiations began.  Clinton finally signed the agreement in 1993 and it was put into action in 1994.  The Agreement stated most tariffs were to be eliminated within 10 years. The NAFTA implementation might have been a contributor to the decline beginning 2001, which, by the way, was the first year of the Bush Presidency.

To get a better handle on the compound annual growth rate of apprehensions and the stability, the graphs below analyze the periods prior and post 2000:

From 1974 to 2000, the growth was quite steady at 3.7%, compounded annually, with 1986 showing up as a uniquely different year being above the Upper Control Limit (middle of negotiations?).  From 2001 to 2017 the decline was -8.8% at an undisturbed rate.  It was during these years that both Bush and Obama, sent troops to the border to help with apprehensions, which were already in steady decline.

Using monthly apprehension data beginning in 2000, lets now look at previous troop deployments to assess their impact, remembering the decline of -8.8% indicated a steady, stable decline.

Bush sent 6,000 troops to the border in 2006, which lasted two years, at a cost of $1,200 Mil.  Apprehensions connected with this deployment were only 176,000 of the 2,030,000  two year total or 9%. Clearly there were no INCREASES in monthly apprehensions during this deployment as seen in the graph above.  (The annual seasonal pattern spikes in March and bottoms in December)

The first graph above compares the two years prior to Bush's deployment to the two years of the deployment.  The conclusion would be that apprehensions dropped by 38% due to the deployment.  In the second graph, in the two years after the deployment, apprehensions dropped another 21.5%.  These last 3 graphs would cause me conclude that there was no impact in apprehensions from Bush's deployment. The $1,200Mil spent did NOT produce any "net extra apprehensions"

Below, you will see a similar analysis of the troop deployment done by Obama in 2010 which lasted only one year at a cost of $110 Mil for 1,200 troops.

Again, Obama claimed 18,000 troop based apprehensions during 2010 of the total 447,731 or 4%.  During 2010, average apprehensions dropped by 22.5% as compared to the 2009 and in 2011 apprehensions remained the same as 2010.  So again, troops at the border did not create any additional apprehensions.

So now Trump is sending 4,000 troops to the border as a "hair on fire" reaction to a lack of his wall being funded, but does the data support his reaction?

 Average apprehensions during Trump's administration are 34.7% lower than the average of the Obama years.  You can see that March 2018 is a large rise, but not outside the the Upper Control Limit.

So, troops at the border probably will not make any difference in apprehensions at the border.  Maybe we should just treat this deployment as Trump's Military Parade!  One final thought: Could the rise in apprehensions during Trump's administration be caused by Trump declaring the end of NAFTA, mirroring the rise prior to the implementation of NAFTA we see in the annual data??