We have high unemployment & underemployment in this terrible economy due to Washington’s rampant desire to raise taxes, increase regulatory & health care burdens, and impose a counterproductive, punishing energy policy. Add to that exploding annual deficit spending with the rapid expansion of government and resulting dangerous levels of debt. This editorial is right – these policies have been an utter failure.
What Expansion?
Investors.com
July 29, 2011
Obamanomics: In case you thought the economy was doing better, Friday’s report on gross domestic product likely disabused you of that notion. It shows the last two years of economic policymaking have been an utter failure.
New data show that the economy has been expanding far less robustly over the past two and a half years than initially claimed.
According to the Commerce Department, first-quarter GDP growth was 0.4%, not 1.9% as first reported. In the second quarter, it grew at a tepid 1.3% pace.
A recent problem? Hardly. Fourth-quarter 2010 growth was also revised down, from 3.1% to 2.3%.
In fact, all told, from the end of 2008 to this year, the government estimates U.S. GDP was $314 billion less than first estimated, not including this year’s revisions.
Digging down into the data shows an even gloomier picture. Per capita GDP, the ultimate measure of both well-being and productivity for a nation, today remains lower in real terms than it was in 2007.
In the second quarter of this year, average annual real output per person stood at $42,499 — still 3.3% below its peak of $43,956 in the fourth quarter of 2007.
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