Former President Obama once stated, “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Not only did that remark insult millions, it betrayed his fundamental lack of understanding of capitalism and free markets. He had never owned a business, created a product or service or met a payroll.
With little grasp of supply and demand, Obama presided over the largest increase in national debt in history. Instead of developing economic policies that generated growth, balanced trade with other nations and provided for low unemployment for our citizens, he read flowery speeches and presided over award ceremonies in the Rose Garden. So it was not surprising his economic recovery plan was a dud. And it’s laughable to hear him and others tooting their little tin horns now trying to take credit for our strong economy.
The American Recovery and Re-investment Act of 2009 is one of the worst economic deals in American History. Current sinking presidential candidate Joe Biden promised the Act would generate 500,000 jobs (Washington Post, April 23, 2010). Biden called 2010 “the summer of recovery.”
But, like Biden, it failed to do the job. In 2010 GDP was 3.0. By 2012 GDP slid to a miserable 1.2. At a Jobs Council meeting in Durham, N.C., making excuses for the failure of his trillion dollar boondoggle, Obama said, “It turns out shovel ready was not as shovel ready as we expected.” He promised it would get better. Instead he enacted a huge number of job killing regulations and another disaster called ObamaCare. By 2012 unemployment was above 8 percent for 40 consecutive months. The labor force was declining and a record of nearly 48 million people were on food stamps.
In 2016, the Federal Reserve Bank in San Francisco predicted, once the recession was over, GDP growth would likely remain below historic norms. The Wall St Journal, November 2010, reported in an interview on CBS Sixty Minutes, Obama warned of a new normal of an environment of businesses having fewer employees and predicting the job market would never regain its footing. With Obama’s people at the helm, that would have been true.
So why are Democrats now floating the fairy tale the robust and strong economy we have began during Obama’s term? From Obama’s economic team’s own statements it’s clear they saw no improvement from what they were doing then.
Democrats and the media last year were predicting, almost begging for, an economic recession. But The Washington Post, no friend of Trump, reported in December, 2019, that around August the economy essentially got a second wind with predictions of only doing better in 2020. That was about the time another presidential race dropout, Hickenlooper, said the economy wasn’t as good as we thought it was-another trial balloon the Democrats floated.
Ironically at that same time some started the story the great economy belonged to Obama. Really? The great economy we have that’s not as good as we think it is really belonged to Obama? What a convoluted mess. But what do you expect from a party that has a Marxist Socialist as its current front runner?
So when all the dust clears, the reality is Obama didn’t build it (this great economy), somebody else did, and that’s Donald Trump.
Ralph Miller
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Mr. Miller,
You, and Republicans like you, seem to forget the economy that President Obama inherited from George W. Bush when he took office in January 2009. After the stock market, banking, housing, and auto industry crashes of 2008, needless to say, he had a mess to clean up.
This country is in the 11th year of an economic expansion, which started under the Obama administration. The employment rate went from 10.2 to 4.7 under Obama; falling another 1.2 since Trump took office.
Trump created 6.7 million jobs in his first three years, a monthly average of 189,000; but Obama created 8.1 million jobs in his last three years, a monthly average of 224,000.
The national debt swelled under Obama as the federal government spent money trying to rebuild the economy after 2008, but at the end of Obama’s term, the annual deficit had declined considerably. Under Trump, the federal budget deficit in the 2019 fiscal year was $1.109 trillion. The government was forced to borrow more money to pay for Trump’s tax cuts and spending policies.
The annual average GDP was 2.3 percent under Obama (2014-2016) ; under Trump the annual average is 2.5 percent (2017-2019), not the 4, 5 or even 6 percent that Trump vowed.
No health care legislation (just trying to destroy the ACA). No immigration legislation. No infrastructure legislation, even though he had control of both the Senate and House the first two of his three years in office. Maybe he could help the GOP create more legislation if he would just stop tweeting, playing golf, and watching Fox News so they can tell him how to run the country.
Farm bankruptcies are soaring because of his tariffs/trade wars and farmer suicides are up.
So to be truthful, Trump inherited a good economy and President Obama did build it.
Let’s give Trump the credit he deserves though, at least he hasn’t put us into bankruptcy yet, like he did his four casinos.
Rebecca Gentry
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Short memory for whom. It was Obama himself that said those manufacturing jobs were never coming back and that we should get used to this new normal.
In the last 30 months of President Obama's term manufacturing jobs grew by 185,000. Under President Trump manufacturing jobs have grown by 499,000 and that's only been a little over three years now.
Most people know the economy crashed because bad housing loans and the so called dot com bubble which fell squarely in the laps of both parties who eagerly drew campaign donations from Wall Street.
Obama got a free windfall of $10 trillion and squandered it. He had no idea how manage given his lack of never running a business.
To say that he deserves credit for this rebound is nothing more than blind obedience to a party that left mainstream America the day that John F. Kennedy died.
Ron Ray