To make matters worse for the egomaniac president, his annual gross domestic product rates, 2.2 percent in 2017 and 2.9 percent last year, don’t beat President Barack Obama’s best results, 2.9 percent in 2015 and 2.6 percent in 2010.

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Former car czar Steve Rattner tells me, “The 4th quarter downward revision is yet another sign that the economy is slowing markedly. The 1st quarter number will almost certainly be weaker still.” He adds, "Instead of celebrating the 3%-plus growth that the Trump administration promised, we are instead having to worry about the economy slipping into recession, as both economists and the bond market are warning us may well happen.”

The Post explains, “Trump has been pointing to the 3 percent measure as the ‘best in 14 years.’ He says that because it is the best fourth quarter to fourth quarter change during that time frame, but growth also hit 3 percent (or better) several times under President Obama, including during the first quarter of 2015, when it grew 3.8 percent.”

This creates a host of problems for Trump and the GOP.

First, the mammoth tax cut primarily for the rich and corporations was justified on the promise that the average worker would see a $4,000 wage boost and that GDP would be permanently boosted over 3 percent. Neither happened. The rich got richer, the debt got bigger, and supply-side economics remained a dud. The cuts neither paid for themselves, nor did they supercharge the economy. The GOP has been flogging the same economic theory for 40 years. It does not work.

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Second, if in fact the economy is cooling, then this year may be worse than 2018, and 2020 worse than that. Trump’s political survival has been hanging by a thread, a strong economy. Take that away, and it’s not clear how far his support will drop.

Third, Trump has claimed ownership of the economy. He got his tax cut, he tried chopping away at regulation, he launched a trade war, and he continued to cheer for dying industries (e.g., coal). All of this is a departure from the Obama economic outlook, so there is no one to blame — unless Trump is going to blame his own Federal Reserve pick. (Trump says he hires the best people, but somehow all screw-ups belong to them). With the Fed signaling it won’t be raising rates any further in the near-term, even the excuse of interest rate hikes looks more feeble.

Finally, if we are headed into an economic slowdown, Trump has few tools to keep the economy afloat. He has already cut taxes, the debt is already enormous, and the Fed surely isn’t going to start cutting interest rates. As Furman puts it, our policies are what “we normally associate with a medium-sized recession: a fiscal stimulus of 1.2% of GDP and interest rates that were below 2% for most of the last year.” If we are headed for a downturn there is not that much more we could do.

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One of the big objections to the gigantic tax cut was that, if the economy did cool off, there would be little the administration could do about it. We may find out in the next year or so just how misguided that tax plan really was.