LANSING– As Donald Trump addressed the nation last night, he time and again sought to cover for his broken promises to Michigan voters with desperate lies and ineffective spin. Here are the top five broken promises from Donald Trump’s State of the Union address:
PROMISE: “[W]e are restoring our Nation’s manufacturing might.”
REALITY: Michigan lost over 5,300 manufacturing jobs last year alone. “The Rust Belt states that narrowly helped deliver Donald Trump’s presidential victory lost manufacturing jobs in 2019 amid trade wars and a strong dollar… Michigan was down 5,300.” [Bloomberg, 1/24/2020]
PROMISE: “We will always protect patients with pre-existing conditions.”
REALITY: Trump has fought desperately to gut protections for pre-existing conditions, threatening health care for over four million Michiganders. As many as 4,394,173 people with pre-existing conditions in MI could have been denied coverage before the ACA went into effect. [Compilation of State Data on the ACA, health and human services, December 2016]
PROMISE: “And we will always protect your Medicare and your Social Security.”
REALITY: Just two weeks ago, Donald Trump threatened to slash Social Security and Medicare if reelected. “President Trump suggested on Wednesday that he would be willing to consider cuts to social safety-net programs like Medicare to reduce the federal deficit if he wins a second term, an apparent shift from his 2016 campaign promise to protect funding for such entitlements.” [New York Times, 1/22/20]
PROMISE: “I was pleased to announce last year that, for the first time in 51 years, the cost of prescription drugs actually went down.”
REALITY: Prescription drug costs have consistently increased under Trump. “The turning of the calendar to January 1st marked a new year, a new decade and new price hikes from some of the pharmaceutical industry’s biggest names. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Gilead Sciences, Biogen and other drugmakers increased list prices on 50 drugs once 2020 began, according to healthcare research firm 3 Axis Advisors. [Fortune, 1/2/2020]
PROMISE: “After decades of flat and falling incomes, wages are rising fast… this is a blue collar boom.”
REALITY: Wages for lower-income Americans barely outpaced the rate of inflation last year, while out-of-pocket health care costs continued to outpace inflation. “Average hourly earnings for production and nonsupervisory workers—generally considered lower-income blue-collar laborers – grew 3% in 2019. Inflation in 2019 was 2.3%. So those workers are gaining on inflation by less than 1 percentage point per year. But that’s only true for families not exposed to out-of-pocket health care costs, which are rising at least twice as fast as overall inflation.” [Yahoo, 1/22/20]
“Even at his State of the Union address, Donald Trump can’t escape the laundry list of promises he’s broken to Michigan’s working families,” said MDP spokesman Christian Slater. “Voters see through the lies and the spin, and are ready to hold him accountable for his failures this November.”
