In case you didn’t get the message the first several dozen times, President Obama wants to remind you that he inherited a problem. He has publicly pointed his finger at the previous administration at least 71 times since his inauguration in order to excuse the economic slowdown, unemployment, housing mess and budget crisis that persist today, 2 1/2 years into his presidency. At various times, Obama has declared that he inherited “a fiscal disaster,” “an economic mess and a fiscal mess,” “a terrible mess,” “a big mess,” and “a real significant problem.” He has called it “the worst recession since the Great Depression,” “an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression,” and “the most profound economic emergency since the Great Depression.” Ignore the fact that, as a senator, Obama voted (when he wasn’t absent, owing to campaign appearances) for much of the debt he now claims to have inherited. We will further refrain from blaming him for an economic crisis that started before he entered the Oval Office. Obama’s accountability concerns his failure to get the job done since then. This week’s anemic economic reports provide the latest in a steadily lengthening parade of news that demonstrates Obama’s policies not only have not produced the promised recovery, but very likely have retarded it. As the maxim goes, insanity consists of doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.
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It has been a depressing week indeed on the economic front. First came the new manufacturing numbers, showing the slowest growth in that sector since September 2009. Then came the ADP Employment Services report, which found that only 38,000 net jobs were added to private payrolls last month — just one-fifth the number expected. Finally, two new real estate reports squeezed extra lemon juice in that salted wound. One showed that mortgage applications are down nationwide despite invitingly low interest rates. The other showed still-falling home prices in 19 out of 20 major cities. (Washington is the sole exception, thanks largely to Obama’s government spending boom.) These gloomy numbers have led major banks to slash forecasts for economic growth. The economy grew just enough last year to emerge, officially, from recession, but has stagnated since. Call it Obama’s stagcovery.
Aside from his explosion of federal deficits, Obama’s economic policies to date have consisted of bullying businesses to help union allies, undermining economic confidence with ferocious, personal attacks on business lenders, and rolling out hundreds of suffocating new regulations. His $800 billion economic stimulus package was a complete bust. More Americans are on food stamps today — 44.5 million, or 14.4 percent — than at any time in American history. He has wasted billions on green energy subsidies even as gas prices climb. Yet unemployment remains at recession levels, the government approaches bankruptcy and Obama … plays golf on Memorial Day. When will Obama acknowledge ownership of the economic problems he has mismanaged for the past 28 months, and try something different?
