VDH describes how the economic goalposts have been moved for Obama.

We have had 38 months of 8% plus unemployment. We are setting records in the numbers of Americans not working and the percentage of the adult population not employed. GDP growth was a pathetic 1.7%. The borrowing hit $5 trillion under Obama, who between golf outings and campaign hit-ups of wealthy people, adds $1 trillion plus each year in more debt. To question how to pay it back is to pollute the air or abandon the children. In 2005, Paul Krugman was writing why Bush's spending was going to crash the economy; in 2012, Paul Krugman is writing why Obama's far greater deficit spending, on top of Bush's debts, is not going to crash the economy, given that we need to borrow far more than our paltry $3 or $4 billion a day.

In 2004, the media's "jobless recovery" was the description of George W. Bush's 5.4% unemployment rate. "It's the economy, stupid" referred to George H.W. Bush's 1992 annual 3.3-4% GDP growth rate. "Unpatriotic" was W's $4 trillion in borrowing in eight years, not $5 trillion in three. If Obama right now had 5.4% unemployment, 3.4% economic growth, and a budget deficit of about $400 billion, what would the media call it--a job-full recovery, "it's not the economy, smarty," or patriotic borrowing?

Hopefully the electorate notices. Couldn't Romney use these stats and history in a speech?

0 TrackBacks

Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: "It's the economy, stupid" -- Moving the Goalposts.

TrackBack URL for this entry: https://www.mwilliams.info/mt5/tb-confess.cgi/8053

Comments

Supporters

Email blogmasterofnoneATgmailDOTcom for text link and key word rates.

Site Info

Support