Tracy C. Miller:
In spite of the claims by President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors regarding his administration’s economic accomplishments, the U.S. economy has grown very slowly in the years since the Great Recession of 2008-09. After four years of slow growth, the latest data reveals that the U.S. economy shrank at a 2.9 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2014.
That figure has been widely reported, but here are some figures that have not been reported, and they are quite eye-opening:
Over the first five years of Obama’s presidency, the U.S. economy grew more slowly than during any five-year period since just after the end of World War II, averaging less than 1.3 percent per year. If we leave out the sharp recession of 1945-46 following World War II, Obama looks even worse, ranking dead last among all presidents since 1932. No other president since the Great Depression has presided over such a steadily poor rate of economic growth during his first five years in office. This slow growth should not be a surprise in light of the policies this administration has pursued.
An economy usually grows rapidly in the years immediately following a recession. As Peter Ferrera points out in Forbes, the U.S. economy has not even reached its long run average rate of growth of 3.3 percent; the highest annual growth rate since Obama took office was 2.8 percent. Total growth in real GDP over the 19 quarters of economic recovery since the second quarter of 2009 has been 10.2 percent. Growth over the same length of time during previous post-World War II recoveries has ranged from 15.1 percent during George W. Bush’s presidency to 30 percent during the recovery that began when John F. Kennedy was elected.
Economic growth is usually faster than normal following a recession as entrepreneurs find more productive ways to employ the resources that were idle during the recession. How rapidly the economy grows and recovers depends partly on whether market forces are allowed to allocate resources, including labor, to their most productive uses. Unfortunately, the Obama administration has pursued several policies that make it harder for market forces to work. These include: bailouts, expansion of entitlement programs, regulation of the economy, tax increases, and huge government deficits.
Bailouts have resulted in capital being stuck in businesses that are either inefficiently run or have failed to produce goods and services that consumers’ value highly. In the absence of bailouts, some firms would have gone bankrupt and the capital reallocated to vibrant firms that are producing what consumers demand in a cost-effective way.
Expansion of government entitlement programs, such as food stamps and unemployment compensation, has reduced the incentive to be employed. The average benefit per recipient of food stamps jumped by approximately 25 percent between 2007 and 2010 due to rule changes. It also became easier to qualify for food stamps. As Richard Vedder points out in a Wall Street Journal editorial, the number of food stamp recipients rose by over 7 million between 2010 and 2012, a period of falling unemployment.
When obama reads stories like this, he tells himself, “Everything is going as planned.”
“yeah, but them mean old Republicans where obstructionizing everything Obama wanted to do and it was all Bush’s fauld and last winter it was real cold (because of global warming) and you’re a racits”
Do you think Obamacare may have contributed to this?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-21/obamacare-disaster-businesses-philly-fed-finds
and
Obama was inaugurated in January of 2009 so it would stand to reason that no president had been handed such a mess since the Great Depression. From the very admission of this post, such profound economic downturns are painfully slow to recover from.
What precisely is your argument? If anything, anyone of reasonable intelligence and a non-bigoted mindset could read your rant and deduce that Obama prevented that Great Recession that was dumped in his lap from turning into another Great Depression.
Also, no other president has had to deal with such defiance from the opposition party who openly admit they intentionally sabotaged the economy along with the political process for political gain. That and the fact that the president is Barack Obama.
It’s truly amazing that the very lapdogs that cheered the economic policies of the Bush years that brought our economy to its knees and then supported austere and plutocratic policies of the corporate funded Tea Party, all while supporting the GOP who refused any efforts to any job bills while pulling funding from proven job growth policies (while even admitting harming the economy was good politics for them), now not only blame Obama for their very own mess but are blaming him for poor job growth.
The Dems took control of the House and Senate in January 2007.
One and a half years later the economy was a mess and headed towards disaster.
0Muslim has simply, and undeniably, made things far worse than what the Dems had already done.
No amount of lib Dem/Rino propaganda can change the truth in the above statements.
@Ronald J. Ward:
If you would remember, Ronald, Obama promised that if only we would let him spend $865 billion dollars on “shovel ready” projects that would repair our infrastructure and put people to work, WPA style, we would never see unemployment go above 7.9%. Did that work?
Obama stated that if he had not repaired the economy in 3.5 years, he would not deserve a second term. Did he honor that?
Shall I list here the promises of economic revival from his green initiatives and Obamacare? How about how much Obamacare is costing? These were all things he wanted and got, though the Republicans rightfully opposed these failures, yet the economy floundered and flounders still.
As I stated, the Republicans opposed Obamacare and the stimulus and, though they both went into law (well, somewhat… Obama will not let the full negative impact of Obamacare hit the electorate) their opposition has been totally vindicated. Then, after the awakening of the voters wrested the dangerous total control of the government from the Democrats, the Republicans have pushed through numerous economic bills, 360 or more pieces of legislation await Reid’s permission to be voted on. Even when the President pushed his “pass it now” jobs bill, Reid would not even allow it to come to a vote due to lack of DEMOCRAT support.
What policies would those be, Ronald? The tax cuts that goosed the economy into life and put an additional $785 billion into the treasury? Perhaps you mean the Community Reinvestment Act, which was singularly responsible for the mortgage, financial and housing collapses? Well, look further back, my friend, because that was a Carter concoction, amped up and made more damaging by Clinton making it mandatory that 10% of mortgages be approved for those that cannot afford them. Hardly a “Bush” economic policy, but one so terrible that Obama has entertained the thought of re-implementing it again.
The economic disaster had Democrat fingerprints all over it and Obama has only made it worse. Remember, Obama has been President… not someone you would prefer to blame all the liberal failures on.
After the election – but before he took office – Obama got Bush to put in programs he wanted instead of programs Bush would have chosen.
That gave him a bit of a leg up.
Then he had TWO YEARS of a 100% Dem Congress.
But he made things worse.
There is a principle:
If you reward a behavior, you get MORE of that behavior.
Obama extended unemployment to 99 weeks.
That reward led to many people staying unemployed longer.
Last May all Obama’s unemployment extensions finally ran out.
And guess what?
People started going back to work.
In droves.
Think of all the phony ”programs” Obama wasted billions on……
Cash 4 Clunkers cost the taxpayers (not the vehicle buyers) $24,000/vehicle.
Census hiring.
The hiring, firing, rehiring, re-firing over and over and over again bumped up the US employment numbers so much that it LOOKED like we were in a recovery.
But it was all phony.
SolYndra sent a bundler buddy nearly a BILLION dollars. Nobody was hired. The toxic clean-up cost taxpayers even more.
The mortgage reinvestment programs had so many hoops very few could take advantage of them.
@Ronald J. Ward: First of all, Obama created the difficulties with the opposing party. His first words were “we won, you lost!” That was a good start. He has piled on after that with his buddy Harry Reid. Remember, he had 2 years where he had both houses and did nothing but play golf. He continues to implement policy that reduces any recovery. (Keystone XL pipeline, Increase in corporate taxes, Obama Care, EPA regulations on a trace gas essential to life, immigration issues, trashing the military, multiple scandals that cause loss of confidence in government plus others too numerous to mention.)
@FMB42: #5
When was the last time you saw any “truth” in the propaganda media? The idea of having a propaganda media is to spread lies, and they are doing it quite well.
@Nanny G: #7
On a Fox News show, one of the money advisors showed a chart on the unemployment. He showed where the unemployment guarantee was for a certain time. I don’t remember how long. The line for unemployment was level, until it ran out, then the line went almost straight up, because the people HAD to get a job. A different time, when the unemployment time was extended, the same thing happened. The same thing happened a third time.
Unemployment isn’t to help the people. It is to get votes for the ones who give out and extend the free stuff.
@Ronald J. Ward:
The stupid is strong with this one…..