SIGH!!
“My opponents may disagree, but those fundamentals, the American worker and their innovation, their entrepreneurship, the small business, those are the fundamentals of America and I think they’re strong.” John McCain
Obama Hypocrisy: Fundamentals of the Economy Are 'Sound'
Joshua Sharp Posted: Mar 17th 2009 12:02AM
Filed under:
Politics,
USC,
The Economy
"
The fundamentals [of the economy] are sound," Obama economic adviser Christina Romer declared Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press.
The irony of the statement was not lost, even on the ears of the media elite, in light of candidate Obama's harsh rhetoric towards then-rival John McCain for saying "the fundamentals of the economy are strong."
"It's not that I think John McCain doesn't care what's going on in the lives of most Americans,"
Obama said then. "I just think he doesn't know ... Why else would he say, today, of all days -- just a few hours ago -- that the fundamentals of the economy are still strong?
"Senator – what economy are you talking about?"
President Obama last week: "If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, all the outstanding companies, workers, all the innovation and dynamism in this economy, then we're going to get through this," Obama said, contradicting his own budget director's recent assertion that "fundamentally, the economy is weak."
So what has changed since the campaigns ended?
Sept. 15, 2008: The Dow Jones Industrial Average is at 10,917. Sen. McCain says that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.
Nov. 4, 2008: Election Day. The Dow has dropped to 9,625.
Jan. 20, 2009: Inauguration Day. The Dow has plummeted further to 7,949.
Mar. 15, 2009: Obama economic adviser Christina Romer says, "Well, of course the fundamentals [of the economy] are sound..." The Dow is just over 7,200.
Prompted by MTP host David Gregory to explain Obama's about-face, Romer dodged before
reinforcing the McCain/Obama comparison:
DR. ROMER: I think when the president says he's focusing on fundamentals, what he means is, is we're focusing on, on fixing the fundamentals; that we've always said we're not looking at the ups and downs of the stock market, we're looking for those crucial indicators: when are jobs turning around, when are sales turning around, when do we see consumers coming to life? That's the kind of thing that--certainly that I'm looking at in terms of when's the economy going to be doing better and, and when can we see some hope.
MR. GREGORY: Are the fundamentals of this economy sound?
DR. ROMER: Well, of course the fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology. We know that, that temporarily we're in a mess, right? We've seen huge job loss, we've seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we're in a, in a bad situation.
You might remember that
Sen. McCain also explained his statement by saying he was referring to the strength and ingenuity of the American worker.
President Obama recognizes now what Sen. McCain understood last year - consumer spending will not rise significantly until consumers believe that the economy is about to improve. While Candidate Obama rode to electoral victory by overstating the most depressing economic news and promising "change," his Administration is now burdened with a country suffering from a crisis of confidence.
That the stock market has continued to crumble since Obama's election certainly doesn't help. It would appear that governance can be a lot tougher than a political campaign.