Obama likes to say that he inherited a horrible economy. He conveniently overlooks the fact that BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS WERE TAKEN OVER BY DEMOCRATS ( HE BECAME SENATOR THEN ) IN 2007.
Here is a snapshot of the American economic scene when Democrats took control in January of 2007:
U.S. unemployment rate: 4.7 percent
U.S. 2007 deficit: 160 billion dollars
With regard to the deficit, the tax cuts of the Bush administration had in fact produced record tax revenues — more than $2.5 trillion annually.
Today, the government barely takes in $2 trillion. The 160-billion-dollar deficit for 2007 was part of a larger downward trend from the past two years. Today, annual deficits are ten times larger — surpassing the one-trillion-dollar mark with regularity. Five years ago, the U.S. annual deficit was 90% lower than it is today.
The markets did not (repeat, DID NOT ) express a sense of relief upon the election of President Obama in early November 2008.
What ensued was an economic panic. It was the most rapid and destructive loss of jobs and capital in U.S. history.
Our pathological and reactionary intellectual community is eager to blame this on President Bush and denies that business leaders feared the coming onslaught of regulatory and redistributive fervor of President-Elect Obama and his supporters.
THEY WERE RIGHT IN FACT. THEIR FEARS HAVE BEEN REALIZED.
I'll go you one further. If you look at the Bureau of Labor & Statistics website you'll see the precise moment when Businesses' across the country realized Obama was going to win the election. That was in September, 2008 when job losses surged to 351,000, then jumped to over 400,000 in October, over 639,000 in November when Obama won.
It's unmistakeable, and it can be tied directly to McCain's mis-steps during the campaign and the election swinging decisively to Obama in Sept of 2008.
And it's not just me, CNN actually reported on the job losses as well.