As if often the case, peoples perception of the overall economy boils down to their personal economic situation. For that to be a valid reflection of and indicator of the overall economy, then we have been in a serious and deep recession for 70 years since there are individuals and certain areas of the country that have had double digit unemployment for that long, and have been experiencing generational welfare dependency.
Of course, America has not been in such an economic depression for 70 years.
The overall US economy is doing quite well. Especially considering all the factors and conditions that exist that are holding it down and working against it. Massive government spending, deficits, record and near record high energy and gas prices, etc...
With $2.00+ gas prices for a sustained period of time, it has eaten up a sizable amount of peoples spending power. If we had 70 cent to $1.25 gas like we did for a large portion of the Clinton admin, the economy would be so hot that it would be close to exploding.
No. The truth is that the Bush Administration has maintained an illusion of prosperity with in excess of $2 Trillion of deficit spending. This fiscal irresponsiblity conceals the fact that our wealth-creating industries are being systematicly downsized and relocated offshore, sacrificing the long term national security of the American People.
There is little doubt that George Bush is conducting economic warfare against the prosperity of the American Middle Class.
"The prohibiting duties we lay on all articles of foreign manufacture which prudence requires us to establish at home, with the patriotic determination of every good citizen to use no foreign article which can be made within ourselves without regard to difference of price, secures us against a relapse into foreign dependency."
--Thomas Jefferson to Jean Baptiste Say, 1815.
"I am one of those who do not believe that a national debt is a national blessing, but rather a curse to a republic; inasmuch as it is calculated to raise around the administration a moneyed aristocracy dangerous to the liberties of the country."-- President Andrew Jackson - (1824)