Washington and the 'Recovery Summer' That Wasn't

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 09/07.10 | Fred Barnes

[MissesBush]

On June 17, the Obama administration proclaimed "Recovery Summer." This was done with considerable fanfare, including the announcement that President Obama and Vice President Biden would tour Recovery Act sites—ones funded by the $814 billion "stimulus"—in full expectation the projects would contribute mightily to accelerated economic growth and job creation.

At the time, I was in Missouri, reporting on the campaign for the state's open Senate seat. As luck would have it, the candidate I was traveling with, Republican Roy Blunt, met at various stops with corporate executives, small businessmen, bankers and entrepreneurs. They were talkative.

Some were Republicans, some weren't, but they said roughly the same thing. We're not expanding our companies. We're not hiring. Bankers said they weren't doing much lending, but there weren't many borrowers either. One pessimistic businessman said he'd like to move his company offshore. Another said he wanted to hire but had backed off because his firm would exceed 50 employees and then be subject to the mandates and requirements of the new health-care law.

Now that Recovery Summer has brought slower growth and meager hiring, it's clear who had a better sense of the country's economic condition. It wasn't cheery officials in Washington whose prediction of a summertime boom was based on economic numbers from the spring. It was folks far from Washington and immersed in the real economy who saw economic stagnation ahead and were adjusting their business decisions accordingly.

Their view of the economy was no secret. You just had to get out of Washington to hear it. Had administration experts done that—if they did, it escaped attention—they'd have spared themselves the embarrassment of a Recovery Summer without a recovery.

[MissesBush]

The continuing cluelessness of Obama and his cabal of mindless ideologues will ensure he's a one termer. Clinton was smart enough to finally learn that if he kept his grubby hands off the economy and didn't grow government too excessively, that the economy might be okay (as opposed to the Democratic narrative that somehow he DID something to create a strong economy in the 90s). Obama is too much of an extremist ideologue to get this, and is too arrogant to admit it even if it did occur to him that his attempts to re-engineer the economy have prolonged the economy's stagnation.

[1rudeboy]

Here’s that Barnes column I mentioned. (Don’t fret, you’re not on a ping list, or anything).

[colorado tanker]

Zero affirmed your opinion, as if it needed any affirmation, by announcing this week he’s going forward with tax increases next year. That should pretty well guarantee another lousy year in 2011. Idiot.