Joe Biden: Republicans are taking credit for Obama's recovery...

To be honest, Obama probable delayed any significant recovery by at least a couple of years and it's still anemic. 

Via PJM:

Vice President Joe Biden said he thinks the proposals outlined by President Obama in last night’s State of the Union address will have traction because Republicans are “taking credit for the recovery, so they must think something we did went pretty well.”
“Secondly, they’re talking about the middle class. That’s not been part of their political vocabulary up until now. And so, there’s going to be some stark choices. You know, they’re going to have to decide whether or not they’re going to actually step up, help the middle class, with tax cuts, with education and — on those issues,” Biden told ABC this morning.
“And I believe there’s a significant core of Republicans who believe that now is the time to make this recovery good for everyone and stronger for the middle class.”
Keep reading…

Chart of the Day: Ronald Reagan vs. Barack Obama Recovery...

The economy was actually worse when Reagan first took office... 

When Ronald Reagan took over from Jimmy Carter in ’81, things were actually worse economically compared to when Obama took over from George W. Bush in ’08.
Consider these three important comparisons of economic indicators, then and now:
- Unemployment was at 10.8% versus 7.7%
- Inflation (Consumer Price Index) was at 13.5% versus 2.7%
- Interest rates (prime rate) was at 21.5% versus 3.25%

Democrats told to avoid the “R” word in 2014

R as in the "recovery" that hasn't exactly materialized...

Via ABC News:

Election-year memo to Democratic candidates: Don’t talk about the economic recovery. It’s a political loser.

So say Democratic strategists in a blunt declaration that such talk skips over “how much trouble people are in, and doesn’t convince them that policymakers really understand or are even focusing on the problems they continue to face.”

In addition, Stan Greenberg, James Carville and others wrote that in head-to-head polling tests the mere mention of the word “recovery” is trumped by a Republican assertion that the Obama administration has had six years to get the economy moving and its policies haven’t worked.

Coincidentally or not, Democrats have largely shelved the “R” word.

Can we get the $800 million in stimulus spending money back? I thought not...

Chart of the Day: Inflation-Adjusted Gross Domestic Product After Recessions...

Very scary chart for our long-term economy...

Via WONKBLOG: 

A new study from the Congressional Budget Office starts with the scariest graph you’ll see today.

Source: Congressional Budget Office

In other words, you’re not imagining it: This economic recovery has been a big disappointment relative to what the United States has usually experienced after a recession.

Obama Recovery: Median Income Falls By $3,040 Per Household

If unemployment is up, median income is down and a record number of people are on food stamps, is this really a recovery?

Via Weekly Standard:

Americans must be wondering how much more of this “recovery” they can afford.  New figures from the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey, compiled by Sentier Research, show that the typical American household’s real (inflation-adjusted) income has actually dropped 5.7 percent during the Obama “recovery.”  Using constant 2012 dollars (to adjust for inflation), the median annual income of American households was $53,718 as of June 2009, the last month of the recession.  Now, after 38 months of this “recovery,” it has fallen to $50,678 — a drop of $3,040 per household.

Yet it gets worse.  Amazingly, incomes have dropped even more during the “recovery” than they did during the recession.  In fact, they’ve dropped more than twice as much as they did during the recession.  From the start to the end of the recession, the real median income of American households fell $1,413, or 2.6 percent.  From the end of the recession to the present day, it has dropped $3,040, or 5.7 percent.  This begs the question:  What kind of “recovery” compares unfavorably with the recession from which it’s ostensibly recovering?

Keep on reading…

Chart of the Day: Change in Income Under Obama

This chart is from liberal New Republic. They have finally acknowledged the alleged Obama recovery is horrible. Read the article associates with the chart here.

Chart of the Day: No Recovery for 99 percent of Americans

Via The American:

Obamacare is killing the recovery

This is from the  The Heritage Foundation. You should read it all.

Obamacare Discourages Hiring
In March 2010, Congress passed President Obama’s health care reform legislation. The bill had appeared in serious jeopardy, and after the upset special election victory of Senator Scott Brown (R–MA), many analysts expected the bill to fail. Instead, it became law.
The law discourages employers from hiring in several ways:

• Businesses with fewer than 50 workers have a strong incentive to maintain this size, which allows them to avoid the mandate to provide government-approved health coverage or face a penalty;
• Businesses with more than 50 workers will see their costs for health coverage rise—they must purchase more expensive government-approved insurance or pay a penalty; and
• Employers face considerable uncertainty about what constitutes qualifying health coverage and what it will cost. They also do not know what the health care market or their health care costs will look like in four years. This makes planning for the future difficult.

Recovery Stalls Post–Obamacare
Within two months of Obamacare’s passing, the recovery stalled. Figure 1 shows net private-sector job creation from January 2009 onward. The red line shows the trend in job creation before and after April 2010. Private-sector job creation improved by an average of 67,600 jobs per month before April 2010.[7]That month, private-sector employers added 229,000 net jobs. Keep on reading...

Herman Cain: "...the worst economic ‘recovery’ in American history”

Herman Cain nails it with this statement. The very scary jobs chart posted above proves this is the worst recovery since WW2.

“This is demonstrably and empirically the worst economic ‘recovery’ in American history”

(The State Column) — Herman Cain, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza, slammed Obama’s handling of the economy in a response to the June jobs report which was released today by the U.S. Department of Labor. Today’s jobs report said that unemployment increased from 9.1 percent to 9.2 percent in the month of June. The jobs report “confirms what most Americans already know: we still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do,” Obama said about the unsettling news.

Cain expressed his dissatisfaction with the June jobs report by stating that “this is demonstrably and empirically the worst economic ‘recovery’ in American history.” Cain, who helped Godfather’s Pizza and Burger King back on their feet, was horrified that the economy had generated only 18,000 net jobs in the month of June. Cain added that “these figures do not even include those who have simply given up on finding work or are underemployed, scraping to get by.”

Alan Greenspan: Stimulus Damaged Recovery

Alan Greenspan joins the chorus of those who believe the stimulus has hurt the recovery.

CNN Money reported:

Massive government intervention to save the economy is to blame for the lagging recovery, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Tuesday.

Greenspan argued for less government intervention to get the recovery rolling and businesses investing in equipment and plants.

“What we need to do now is to calm down; let things move by themselves,” he said at a forum at the Council of Foreign Relations. “And indeed the rate of activism has decreased significantly and the ratio of capital flow has inched back up.”

H/T Gateway Pundit.

Interesting Graphic of the Day

Quarterly GDP growth: Reagan recovery verses Obama recovery.

Visit Liberty Works for more details.

Recovery Summer Vacation (video spoof)

Combine the movie Vacation with Recovery Summer and hilarity ensues.

Recovery Summer Fail

In June, Obama kicked off what the White House called "Recovery Summer."

The Administration today kicks off “Recovery Summer,” a six-week-long focus on the surge in Recovery Act infrastructure projects that will be underway across the country in the coming months – and the jobs they’ll create well into the fall and through the end of the year.

This chart from the Heritage Foundation's 'The Foundry' blog sums up the results.



Read all the disappointing details here.

The Road to Recovery May be Coming to a Dead End for Many States

The Stimulus money that was propping up state budgets is coming to an end. Congress has not refunded this public sector employee welfare. The jobs of many public sector employees will soon be coming to an end too.

In 2010, the Obama administration has estimated school districts across the country might lay off as many as 300,000 employees, many of them teachers. That would be five times the number of layoffs in 2009, and 10 times the number of layoffs in 2008....

Unemployment Claims Graph is Killing Obama Recovery Spin Talk

President Obama has been trying to spin the recession as over since last October, but there is no consensus the recession has ended. If the recession has truly ended, we are in a jobless recovery. The new employment claim graph has been flat since last October. (see chart)

Chart from Uncommon Misperceptions: