Economy's still O's Albatross
Sorry, Bam: You're no Bubba
Last Updated: 1:27 AM, May 11, 2011Posted: 11:11 PM, May 10, 2011
More Print Charles Gasparino
Last week was great for President Obama -- from nabbing Osama bin Laden on Sunday to good news on jobs on Friday. Republicans I speak to around Wall Street are even predicting that he's now a shoo-in for re-election in 2012 -- recovering just as Bill Clinton did from his own early screwups.
Not so fast. First, the "bin Laden bounce" is fading fast, down to 3 points in one poll. More important: If Obama is to follow in Bill Clinton's footsteps, he'll need a lot more weeks like the past one. And he's not likely to get them -- because his policies have always been more anti- growth than Clinton's.
REUTERS
Building zero confidence: Obama's policies have been far more hostile to growth than Clinton's.
Reminders of the folly of Obamanomics are everywhere, from continued high unemployment to $4-a-gallon gas.
Sure, the economy is finally recovering from the after-effects of the 2008 banking collapse that Obama inherited. The Labor De partment reported that the private sector created 268,000 jobs in April, the third straight month of sizable gains; meanwhile, the stock market is moving toward 13,000 -- levels not seen since before the bottom fell out of the financial sector. But the economy is far from surging.
When Clinton won in 1996, unemployment was around 5 percent and heading lower -- thanks to the Internet and tech revolutions that were creating millionaires by the day. What do we have now?
* A government-driven "green energy" agenda that doesn't create nearly enough jobs, but offers tax breaks to companies like GE, which turn around and expand in China.
* Near zero-percent interest rates that let banks make billions by trading bonds instead of making loans to small businesses.
* Inflation, particularly in commodities like oil -- the result of those low interest rates and the president's no-drilling policies.
* An unemployment rate edging higher -- to 9 percent, up from 8.8 percent, as people who'd given up looking for work start trying again. And many who do find a job have to settle for lower pay than they had before the Great Recession.
Forget Clinton's 5 percent unemployment; I haven't found a private- sector economist who thinks we're heading below 7 percent anytime soon. According to several estimates, the economy must create a whopping 7 million jobs just to get to prerecession levels.
President Obama will tell you (and does, every chance he gets) that he started off in a deeper hole: A massive financial crisis and waves of unemployment. But Ronald Reagan inherited a mess back in 1981 -- massive inflation, high interest rates and an economy stricken by the malaise of the Jimmy Carter years. With help from Paul Vol cker at the Fed, Reagan had a massive recovery going by 1983.
Sorry: The nation's still paying economically -- and Obama's paying politically -- for the utter recklessness of his policies, from his decision to socialize medicine rather than focus on creat ing jobs to his failed "stimulus" program that did little more than transfer $800 billion to state and local coffers so the pay and benefits would keep flowing to public employees.
Obama's building zero confidence about the future, too. He's back to insisting on the end of the Bush tax rates after next year -- promising higher taxes on "millionaires and billionaires," meaning small businesses and families that make $250,000. And his plan to supposedly cut $4 trillion in spending over the next 12 years doesn't add up -- everyone knows it's just a pose, so he can pretend to be responsible as he fights Republican efforts to make real cuts.
As his no-drill policies help push up energy prices, his only answer is more politics -- bashing the oil companies and threatening special tax hikes on them, as if that wouldn't push up prices. For all this and more, the economy will be an albatross for Obama all the way to November 2012. He might yet win -- the weak Republican field is itself fumbling to come up with a growth agenda. But don't start the re-election parties just yet.
Charles Gasparino is a Fox Busi ness Network senior correspondent.
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