While President Obama proudly claims to have pulled the U.S. economy off the brink of depression and into robust growth, a leading economic expert says Obama’s claims are nothing more than “calculated deception” and that our emergence from the financial crisis is the worst economic performance in 80 years.
In recent weeks, Obama has told crowds of supporters his administration has achieved an historic economic turnaround.
“Thanks to the hard work of you and some actually pretty smart policies by us, we have come farther and recovered faster than almost any other advanced nation on earth,” said Obama at a recent event.
“So despite what you may hear, there is no doubt we are making progress. By almost every measure, we are better off than when I took office,” added Obama.
Heartland Institute Senior Fellow Peter Ferrara is the author of the institute’s report entitled “Why the United States Has Suffered the Worst Economic Recovery Since the Great Depression.” He says says Obama’s message is largely smoke and mirrors.
“I describe President Obama’s rhetorical style as calculated deception. Those clips are the most perfect example I’ve heard of that to date,” said Ferrara.
Far from agreeing with Obama’s assessment, Ferrara wonders when we ever had a recovery.
“There’s been no economic recovery from the 2008-2009 recession to this day. You’re going to see that happen now under Trump. You’ll see what a huge difference it is when you have a real economic recovery instead of the paltry weak excuse of a recovery we had,” said Ferrara.
Obama and his defenders often point out the recovery was especially given the depths of the financial crisis. Ferrara says that’s exactly backwards.
“The American historical record is the worse the recession, the stronger the recovery. So there should have been an economic boom coming out of the recession in the summer of 2009. Here we are eight years later and that still hasn’t happened,” said Ferrara.
He says it has not happened because Obama pursued a Keynesian economic strategy that is a proven failure.
“Keynesian economics is a doctrine that the road to economic recovery is increase government spending, deficits, and debt. If that sounds crazy, it is crazy. It was introduced in the 1930s. It failed to end the Great Depression, but extended it and made it even worse,” said Ferrara.
“That’s been the experience under Keynesian economics. It should be expected. If you increase government spending, government deficits, and debt, that’s anti-growth not pro-growth. That just delays the recovery, which is what it’s done every time it’s been tried,” said Ferrara, who says Obama’s aggressive pursuit of a bigger regulatory state and destabilizing monetary policy are also major factors in the sputtering economy.
“You had twice as much economic growth under Jimmy Carter as you had under President Obama in his first term,” said Ferrara.
He says Obama did the exact opposite of what President Reagan did to kickstart massive economic expansion.
“Reagan had a four-point economic program. It was cut tax rates, deregulation, reduce government spending, and have a strong dollar monetary policy. President Obama’s policies have been exactly the opposite of each one of those four,” said Ferrara.
As a result, Ferrara says poverty rates skyrocketed and the middle class suffered a fiscal punch to the stomach.
“Incomes for the middle class have fallen just about continuously throughout his entire two terms in office. During the first term alone, the middle class lost the equivalent of about one month’s pay a year,” said Ferrara.
So despite the rosy Obama rhetoric, Ferrara says the middle and working classes know what the economy has done to their bottom line and their frustration boiled over in November.
“That was the fundamental element in this past election. The blue-collar workers smartly saw that they had been abandoned by the Democrats. They were the original backbone for the Democrat Party. But the Democrat Party has forgotten that for so long that they’ve given up on the Democrat Party as have so many other groups,” said Ferrara.
Ferrara says if the U.S. economy stays on the pace set by Obama and we keep seeing two percent growth instead of three to four percent, we’re on our way to a third-world economy within half a century.
“It’s $521 trillion over 50 years in loss of economic growth and prosperity. That’s the net cost. The entire American economy is only $18 trillion a year. $521 trillion. How many American economies is that? That’s the biggest economic loss in world history,” said Ferrara.
“So if we keeping growing at the two percent or less that Obama has, and we keep that going year after year, we’ll eventually descend to the status of a third world country,” said Ferrara.
However, Ferrara does not expect that to happen since Trump appears ready to pursue a Reagan-like economic agenda.
“The reason Trump is going to create a boom is because every one of the key policies is doing the opposite of what Obama did. He’s proposed to cut taxes like Reagan did. He’s proposed to reduce regulatory burdens like Reagan did. He’s proposed to reduce regulatory burdens like Reagan did. he will appoint good members to the Fed that will restore sound monetary policy that will stabilize the dollar over the long run,” said Ferrara.
