Republican presidential front-runner, Mitt Romney, was campaigning in a Tampa coffee shop where he delivered some remarks about the economy:
“It’s been a failure in the last several years to get America back on track again. It’s taken longer to get Americans back to work than it took during the Great Depression. This is the slowest job recovery since Hoover.”
Nice try, Mitt. An analysis by PolitiFact shows that Romney fell somewhat wide of the mark. As it turns out there were at least two, and perhaps as many as four, recessions that experienced slower recoveries. Amongst these were recessions overseen (and caused) by George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan. Now Romney and the rest of the GOP pack would like to go back to the policies that produced recoveries that were even slower than the one we are suffering through now.
I’m pretty sure that’s not what America wants, but whether or not they learn about the failures of the past that the GOP embraces will be determined by how thorough and honest the media is in reporting these facts.
PolitiFact goes into great detail in their analysis. They even explain the possible reasons that the present economic weakness has been so frustratingly enduring:
“Part of this likely stems from the severity of the recession (which most experts agree is the worst since the Great Depression) and part stems from a long-term trend toward relatively jobless recoveries. The first seven recoveries on our list averaged a jobs bounceback of more than 8 percent; the final five averaged 2 percent.”
By every standard of measure, the Obama administration is performing fairly well relative to historical comparisons, despite not achieving the results we all desire as rapidly as we would like. At least we are no longer in the vertical plunge the previous administration had cast us into.
The economy, as usual, will play a major role in the upcoming election. The challenge for Democrats is to tell the story of this recovery’s progress, even though to many voters it may not feel like there has been much. And the first line of attack is to call out the falsehoods and misrepresentations like the one Romney tried to pass off in Tampa.
The Obama reelection campaign needs to focus on how the republicans have tried to block every effort they made to the recovery. They keep saying the stimulus was a failure and will continue with that mantra. Can you imagine where we would be without the stimulus? It would have been 1929 all over again! The repukes do not want a recovery, that is obvious and the way they are playing chicken with the upcoming debt ceiling debate is causing the recent shakiness in the markets. People need to get a clue and get informed. Unfortunately Fox not News followers will never be informed in anyway. They are the counterpart to the old Soviet era news agencies Tass and Pravda.
That’s another important argument. The GOP has put up obstacles to recovery all along. Any improvement in the economy works against their stated “first priority,” to make Obama a one-term president. They have also blocked more White House appointments (agencies, judges, etc) than at any other time in history.
For me, blocking his appointments seems to be just a microcosm of their strategy; just get in the way of anything productive so they can win. They aren’t interested in doing anything for the country. Mitch McConnel(sp?) said as much.
Liberals fear that Romney will be able to make a strong case against re-electing President Obama!
Such a great text! I have no clue how you wrote this report..it’d take me weeks. Well worth it though, I’d suspect. Have you considered selling ads on your website?