Obama and the Recovery

When Obama ended up being the one in office, the top priority was to provide aid to states and have tax cuts; but that has not been a priority since the recovery has seemed to have stalled.

From November of last year — the month whose job report brought cheer to the White House — to May, the economy added almost one million jobs, thanks partly to census hiring. Since May, almost 400,000 jobs have disappeared. This will come into play when the democrats fall during next weeks elections. Since the health care bill passed, Obama has fallen and is now looking weak.

The problems began with the original stimulus, passed in February 2009. Centrist senators, whose votes were needed, opposed the kind of huge, $1 trillion-plus program that now seems as if it would have been best. But even within those confines, the ultimate $787 billion bill was flawed. Some $70 billion of it went to a tax cut that Congress would surely have passed anyway.

Recoveries from fiancial crises is slow and long, stimulus spending was also slow and many other factors has led to a weak recovery. Obama and many others have realized that recovery will take longer than expected.