IBD's Guide To Debunking Obama's Economic Myths

Tweet

IBD, in a recent editorial, explores the five myths on which Obama rests his reelection bid. The thumbnail:

1. The Bush tax cuts and deregulation caused the recession. IBD and I are in agreement on that one - it was almost two decades of left wing social engineering of our credit market that caused the massive housing bubble - and with it, the but for cause of our great recession.

2. Obama stopped a second depression. Not quite. The recession bottomed out before Obama took office. Obama's contribution has been in preventing recovery.

3. Obama's economic policies are working. If by that Obama means his policies have lowered median income, replaced jobs lost in the recession with low wage entry level jobs, caused record long term unemployment, and increased the numbers of Americans in poverty, then yes, Obama's policies have been an epic success.

4. A slow recovery was inevitable. This is an excuse Obama only trotted out after his economic policies failed.

5. Nobody could have done any better. History teaches that deep recessions are followed by faster recoveries - at least until Obama. As IBD notes:

Since World War II, there have been 10 recoveries before Obama's. Had Obama's merely performed as well the average of all those recoveries, the nation's GDP would be a staggering $1.2 trillion bigger than it is today, and 7.9 million more people would have jobs.