Tim Pawlenty projects in his economic plan that the gross domestic product (GDP) would grow by 5 percent in real (inflation adjusted) dollars every year for a decade. The debate is now raging over whether such projections are realistic, but the more important consideration is whether the growth rate actually achieved by the Obama administration is sufficient. Moreover, unlike in Pawlenty’s case — where we’re dealing with abstract projections — President Obama’s record can be evaluated on the basis of tangible evidence. 

According to figures from the Obama administration’s own Bureau of Economic Analysis, for the nine economic quarters that Obama has been in office (including the first quarter of 2009, during which President Bush held office for 19 of the 90 days), real annual growth in GDP has been just 1.5 percent.  That’s less than half the annual GDP growth during the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s. Even more striking is that the rate of growth under Obama has been only slightly higher than during the 1930s — which, of course, was the decade of the Great Depression. In the 1930s, real annual GDP growth was 1.3 percent — just 0.2 percent less than under Obama.