Obama's Economy: CBO Says Several More Years of Misery and Failure

After three full years of Obama economic policy, the United States is mired in an anemic recovery the likes of which -- and the length of which -- we have not seen since the Great Depression.

Make no mistake about it: this is Obama's economy.

As much as he tries to spin and play the blame game, where everything from George Bush, Japanese disasters, European economic collapse, unrest in the Middle East (fully supported by Obama, by the way), right down to ATM machines and airport kiosks are at fault, it is Obama's policies that are at the root of the economic stagnation we are experiencing.

While those factors have each played a role and most experts will attest that recessions spawned from financial failure are harder to recover from, we have seen no real, lasting signs that this recovery is taking root.

Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips said, “While the Obama Administration brags about 22 months of private sector growth, they fail to provide context; that pace is so sluggish that it doesn’t even keep up with basic demographic growth. It’s a nice statistic to repeat, but there’s no real economic impact.”

The Congressional Budget Office projects that the economy will perform below its potential for another six years and unemployment will remain above 7 percent for another three.

“The pace of the economic recovery has been slow since the recession ended in June 2009, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects that, under current laws governing taxes and spending, the economy will continue to grow at a sluggish pace over the next two years... the agency expects that the economy’s output will remain below its potential until 2018”

After three full years of Obama economic policy, the United States is mired in an anemic recovery the likes of which -- and the length of which -- we have not seen since the Great Depression.

Under Obama's watch, we have seen years of stagnant growth, high unemployment, higher still underemployment. The slight uptick in December, as predicted by many, was due to holiday retail help and courier services; many of these jobs went away in January.

Employment growth probably slowed in January as messengers hired during the busy holiday shopping season were laid off, but the improving labor market trend should remain intact...

Employment remains about 6.1 million below its pre-recession level. There are no jobs for three out of every four unemployed people and 23.7 million Americans are either out of work or underemployed.

According to this same CBO report, the unemployment rate will be 8.9 percent on Election Day... 9.1 percent in 2013 and remain at 7 percent or above through 2015. This is based on what is being called fairly optimistic assumptions.

Obama has placed on us massive annual budget deficits as far as the eye can see and a national debt that is truly unfathomable. So says the Concord Coalition, a group that can hardly be called politically conservative:

The Concord Plausible Baseline, which applies more realistic assumptions about future policy decisions to the CBO’s data, shows annual deficits remaining in the trillion dollar range throughout the next 10 years and totaling almost $12 trillion.

Despite the CBO's prediction that tax revenues will increase, we have seen trillion dolar deficits each year of Obama's term and will see trillion dollar increases to the national debt for the foreseeable future.

In dollar terms, the anticipated increase in federal tax revenue from fiscal 2011 ($2.302 trillion) to fiscal 2014 ($3.313 trillion) is $1.011 trillion. That is an increase of 43.9 percent.

Last year, 2011, was literally the worst year for housing in the nation's history ever; we saw new home sales less than half of what is expected in a healthy economy (unexpectedly!). And, housing prices continue their free fall in nearly all cities. Foreclosure numbers should continue to rise, after an appearance of improvemet in 2011, likely due to procedural delays and pressure from Washington to delay the inevitable:

Paperwork issues, robo-signing and regulatory matters have slowed the process down. Now, it takes 348 days on average to process a foreclosure - two months longer than it took in 2010... There's still six million foreclosed homes that need to be processed.

The slowed foreclosure rate is a trend not likely to continue.

There were strong signs in the second half of 2011 that lenders are finally beginning to push through some of the delayed foreclosures in select local markets. We expect that trend to continue this year, boosting foreclosure activity for 2012 higher than it was in 2011, though still below the peak of 2010.

Real estate analyst Rick Sharga told CBS News (the) U.S. has two to three "challenging" years before the housing crisis is over.

Obama's economic record is abysmal. He STILL(!) tells us (repeatedly) that he inherited the problem. Perhaps that may be so; but the president has done nothing to improve the situation and likely has made it worse.

The real problem is not that Obama inherited the recession (I say he asked for it, but that is another post). The problem is that his policies has caused the economic woes to linger (far) longer than after any recession since the Great Depression.

When compared to the three other slowest post-war recoveries, the current “jobless recovery” has been thought unique in its lack of employment growth.

One of the major differences between the current recession and previous recessions is the seemingly anti-business rhetoric and policies of Obama and the Democrats in Congress.

In addition to repeated attacks on American business.. an expensive stimulus package... the health care bill... proposed high taxes on carbon emissions, large increases in taxes on higher income individuals, corporate profits, and capital gains as part of vocal attacks on “billionaires”... a financial reform bill that is a complicated and a politically driven mixture of sensible reforms, and senseless changes that have little to do with stabilizing the financial architecture, or correcting what was defective in prior regulations.

It is no surprise that this rhetoric and the proposed and actual policies discouraged business investment and slowed down the recovery.

Compared to all other recessions since the 1930's the current slow recovery is most similar to the Great Depression.

• Spending. Large increases in federal spending under Roosevelt and Obama did nothing to help unemployment, which remained high. Presidents Roosevelt and Obama responded similarly to the crises. They talked about balancing the federal budget, but instead resorted to massive spending... The results were budget deficits and higher unemployment.
• Tax Increases. During the Great Depression Roosevelt raised both income and excise taxes. Most of the tax hikes under Obama are planned for the future. Thus far we have seen proposed tax hikes on products such as cigarettes, liquor, plane tickets, and soft drinks.. capital gains tax, the income tax, and the estate tax.
• The Blame Game. Roosevelt sought scapegoats to explain his failure. Wall Street bankers were his favorites. He also blamed America’s top businessmen. Obama has followed FDR’s playbook of attacking Wall Street bankers and various corporate leaders.

Are you better off than you were four years ago? If so, you are among the very few who are.

Regular gasoline per gallon cost $1.68 in January 2009. Today, it’s $3.39 — that’s a 102 percent increase in just three years.

Electricity bills have also skyrocketed, up some $300 (annually).

Some 48 percent of all Americans — 146.4 million — are considered by the Census Bureau either as “low-income” or living in poverty, up 4 million from when Mr. Obama took office; 57 percent of all children in America now live in such homes.

Since December 2008, a month before Mr. Obama took office, food-stamp use has increased 46 percent.

If it is true that financial recessions are harder to fix, shouldn't we have someone in the Oval Office who knows how to fix such problems? Obama apparently doesn't. Shouldn't we have someone in the Oval Office who know how to create jobs (or, even had one)? Obama apparently doesn't. The Hope and Change thing is over; it was a failure and will continue to fail us.

Obama voters, be honest. Is this the Change you expected Obama to deliver? Are these truly the policies that we have been waiting for? If so, give him four more years, and you will see four more years of failure.