Hey Republicans, Can You Answer These Questions Truthfully About the "Obama Economy?"

The Republican party's love affair with former President Ronald Reagan took on Mark Sanford-like Argentinian proportions after eight miserable years of George Bush. To conservatives today, Reagan is God. To Democrats, he's an overrated myth who tripled the deficit and doesn't deserve the hype. But, he was a masterful politician who brilliantly asked Americans during a 1980 televised debate with then-incumbent Jimmy Carter, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" The rest is campaign history.

With the country still reeling from the impact of the worst financial crisis not seen in 80 years, perhaps it's time that that other masterful politician, President Barack Obama, defend his nascent administration's fiscal policies by revisiting and re-phrasing that legendary question: Is the economy stronger now than when Bush left office? It's a really simple question, and one that cuts right through the rampant partisan rhetoric polluting the airwaves today.

So here's a little test for our Republican friends to help them decide the status of the nation's economy. I dare them to answer these questions truthfully, as Americans first, and not as transparent partisan stooges:

1. Is the stock market stronger today than when Bush left office?
2. Is the banking industry stronger than when Bush left office?
3. Are Wall Street companies (JP Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, etc) doing better today than when Bush left office?
4. Are the credit markets doing better than when Bush left office?
5. Is the auto industry doing better than when Bush left office?
6. Are the housing markets doing better than when Bush left office?
7. Are retailers doing better than when Bush left office?
8. Is the technology industry doing better than when Bush left office?
0. Are monthly jobless claims lower than when Bush left office?
10. Is consumer confidence higher than when Bush left office?

Of course, the answer to every single one of these black and white questions is yes. Conclusion? It's abundantly clear that President Obama's stewardship of the economy has resulted in tremendous improvement from the near-abyss the nation fell into last Fall at the end of Bush's presidency. While Republicans can vehemently criticize Obama's stimulus plan and disingenuously declare its failure all they want, the facts speak for themselves.

Nice work, President Obama. Keep it up. While Republicans may never thank you, their businesses, jobs, homes and savings will.

Comments

[Conservador-Rebelde]

11. Is the government bigger than when Bush left office? (which even liberals didn't like how big Bush's gov. was.)

[Conservador-Rebelde]

I have one question for you:

Did you know that Obama has done the same economic policies as Bush? He might have written a bigger check for them, but it was the same policy. So if you want to say that Obama gets credit, then Bush gets some too.

[mat3]

If my cat had access to 23 trillion dollars, she could accomplish everything on this list to.


http://abcnews.go.com/Business/Politics/story?id=8127005&page=1

[Andy Ostroy - Huffpost Blogger]

Oh, come on with this rubbish! The government has not spent $23 trillion, not even close. More like $3-trillion. And, in the very article you link to, Barofsky himself admits that this number is not going to be the actual number, and that he was merely demonstrating what the size and scope of the funding could ultimately be if the government spent the maximum amount on each of the 50 spending initiatives involved in fighting the recession. And furthermore, here's how the NY Times explained the $23-billion figure yesterday:

"It also assumes that every home mortgage backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac goes into default, and all the homes turn out to be worthless. It assumes that every bank in America fails, with not a single asset worth even a penny. And it assumes that all of the assets held by money market mutual funds, including Treasury bills, turn out to be worthless. It would also require the Treasury itself to default on securities purchased by the Federal Reserve system."

It would be nice for a change if people (a) knew what they were talking about and didn't spread misinformation,and (b) didn't feel the need to politicize everything.

[mat3]

The key word in my post was access. I never said he spent it. My dog could have done it with 3 trillion though.

[n5ifi]

WHERE ARE THE JOBS?

[PunKinPai]

Unfortunately, it takes a lot longer to create jobs than to lose them, especially when so many were in industries based on an economy built on sand.

[CellarDoor]

I'm no economist but don't fiscal trends occur in periods of time much larger than the slightly more than the 6 plus months Bush has been out of office? And honestly, is there any difference from now and six months ago? Profit numbers are up for banks and their stocks...i­s that the proper metric? The only metric? The big industries too big to fail are still to big to fail (which is undemocratic by definition), nobody has the gall (read: civic duty) to reign these inherently dangerous economic behemoths in and stop the threat to the US and world economy from incompetent (read: maniacally greedy) management. The regulations both parties have worked tirelessly to erode or remove over the last 30 years are STILL not in place allowing for the same exact stupidity to occur AGAIN.

Perhaps I'm just uninformed or even stupid when it comes to the economy but to me this article seems like pep-assembly 'cheerleading' for results that do not exist now...or at least don't exist yet.

Pardon my cynicism, please, but these big banks took our money and bought up smaller banks and rewarded their own internal greed and failure, and still threaten our democracy as ALL politicians seem to be bought and paid for to cater to them above all else...doe­sn't seem like we're better off than we were a whole what...7 months ago?

[freelyb]

Exactly. Good post.

[wandering girl]

so you're putting your salary under your mattress, rather than a bank?

[Tyler-Durden]

i think the point of this article is that the people whining about failure (the repubs) are for the most part the people who've benefitted most from all of Obama's actions to date.

[CellarDoor]

Indeed. Watching them trash Obama when he's trying to save their beloved capitalism is hilarious. Like fighting the fireman attempting to pull you from the burning building by saying he's not actually trying to save your life.

And banks aren't a bad thing in and of themselves obviously, but if you remove boundaries and constraints, you reap the costs of unfettered and unrestrained greed. Remember that humans sit behind the wheels of these industries and at the end of the day, unfortunately for now, the notion of "getting all you can for yourself and screw the consequences' is the rule in those industries, not the exception.

Of course my money is not under my mattress..­what choice do I have? But is that an excuse to let them risk this country's, and by extension, the world's financial well being? It that the only choice? Give these people impunity for any and all actions outside of murder or restrictions so great that we all starve to death and must keep our cash in a sock under a pillow?

Why was the original paradigm so terrible? What happens when a company has the power of a country? What happens when money becomes truly unbound? What happens when a company can purchase a country AND it's arsenal? Still think 'no limits' is a good idea? It's not called a 'dystopian' future for nothing...

[Henry]

Andy,
You sound as vacant as a young republican concerning economics! The issue is not the plottings on the cartesian plane but the substance. Barack is getting the stabilization so that the country resumes to from whence it came. However this is only emulation of what got us into problems in the first place. Obama needs to gut the economy of the financial market manipulation which permits many a wall streeter from taking money out of the economy without putting anything in (in terms of production). Until this is done... it is same old same old. In many respects Barack is the same old Bushwa in different clothing. The return to the funny money economy is no improvement.

[classicalgeek]

Brilliant piece. Unfortunately the response to it will be "Oh, it just wasn't THAT bad." Rewriting history and short memories are common failings. Otherwise we wouldn't be in the mess we are today, and Santayana would never have been able to say, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

[BobLablah]

Only one questions matters: Is unemployment as low as Obama promised it would be when he sold us his "stimulus" package. Without jobs, nothing else matters.

[Andy Ostroy - Huffpost Blogger]

Sorry Bob, that is not the only thing that matters. With each month that we have massive jobless claims, the monthly unemployment rate will continue to rise. But it's an inarguable fact that when we go from losing 700,000 jobs per month to 500,000 or 400,000 or 300,000 or eventually 100,000 that's called significant improvement. The rate will only stop increasing when we start producing jobs and stem the losses. But what matters is that we're clearly heading in the right direction, as less and less jobs are being lost per month. Let's not politicize things. The progress in the economy is undeniable.

[freelyb]

Things are already politicized. Obama would have been more effective -- and he'd have held public support -- if he'd given more attention to causes as opposed to symptoms. The Goldman-Sachs elephant is still hanging out in America's living room and it's starting to smell really bad.

[BobLablah]

Obama promised us unemployment would go no higher than 8% if we gave him his stimulus package. All I'm doing is holding the man to his word. What's political about that? I would think you would be holding his feet to the fire on this topic too, especially since in a recent interview he said there's not one thing he'd change about his stimulus if he could. Do we really want another president like Bush who's afraid to admit when one of his ideas doesn't work?

[Saidas]

FYI Bob...the stimulus package you are referring to was from the Bush administration, not Obama's. It was put together in the fourth quarter of last year. Look it up. And do yourself and you country a favor and stop using Fox "News" as a news source.

[BobLablah]

The stimulus package was passed on February 13, 2009 without a single house republican vote, according to the neo-con New York Times. The NYT article quotes Republican leader Boehner as saying:

“The president made clear when we started this process that this was about jobs,” Mr. Boehner said after the vote. “Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. And what it’s turned into is nothing more than spending, spending and more spending.”

Facts can be such inconvenient things.