Economic growth for 2011 clocked in at a mere 1.7%. The Federal Reserve is predicting more sluggish growth for the next two years. The economy isn’t growing fast enough to make up for the recession, or the jobs lost in the last few years.
President Obama is constantly complaining about the recession he “inherited,” but what he inherited was the chance to take credit for a rapidly expanding economy after a sharp recession. Instead of allowing the economy to rebound, his policies have prevented a strong recovery and left growth behind. James Pethokoukis explains:
In other words, the Obama Recovery stinks. Even if today’s GDP report—for the fourth quarter of 2011—shows 3 percent growth or better, it would be just the fourth time that has happened since the economy began turning up in June 2009: 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2010, and 3.8 percent in the second quarter of 2010. But no 3 percent-plus quarters since then.
The first nine quarters of the Reagan Recovery, by contrast, looked like this: 5.1 percent, 9.3 percent, 8.1 percent, 8.5 percent, 8.0 percent, 7.1 percent, 3.9 percent, 3.3 percent, 3.8, percent, 3.4 percent. In fact, the Reagan Boom went from the first quarter of 1983 until the second quarter of 1986 without notching a sub-3 percent GDP quarter.
So, while the Reagan Recovery quickly made up for lost years of growth, not so much for the Obama Recovery, as this chart in today’s Wall Street Journal makes clear:
Be sure to read the whole thing. Also, the WSJ article explains how businesses are reacting to the current political climate.
Many business leaders say they are also being held back by policy-related uncertainty, everything from the threat of new regulations and higher taxes to the fear that political gridlock could hamper the government’s ability to respond to a new crisis. Recent economic research has given some weight to those complaints. A study by a trio of academic economists found that policy uncertainty has risen in recent years, and that periods of uncertainty have in the past corresponded with rising unemployment and slowing growth.
“We do find that in the past two years, economic-policy uncertainty has been extraordinarily high,” said Steven Davis, a University of Chicago professor who is one of the study’s authors. (Read More)
Obama’s class-warfare strategy might score him points with his base, but it isn’t doing anything to help the economy.
Update: The WSJ has more on the economy, and the Federal Reserve in the editorial pages.
If BHO can’t say or do anything other than “I inherited this economy”, then why did he run for the job? He new the collapse was coming in Aug. ’08. If he didn’t have an idea what to do, he should of handed the reins over to Billary and went back to being Senator “Present”.
He was vying for the most powerful-and toughest- office in the world. What did he expect, a ticker tape parade every day for 8 yrs? He knows now he can’t handle the job, yet he continues to run for re-election. I can only believe he is out to squeeze as much out of the WH experience as he can before being tossed out. He gives a rats ass less if he takes the economy or the people down with him, as long as he has secured his name in the socialist hall of fame.
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[...] Lonely Conservative No comments yetEverything is Bush’s fault. Just ask President Obama, who squandered the opportunity to preside over a robust economy. He’d rather play the blame game and engage in class warfare than do anything productive. So [...]
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