Will Obamacare Destroy the Democrats?

KING: Do you have any doubt at all that we will be on a path to growth in this year?

ROMER: I don't. I think the reason that -- I mean, I should say things could change, right? I'm not a fortune teller. I do feel strongly we've taken the right policies, the big bold fiscal stimulus, the financial rescue. As you talked about, there's going to be more announced this week.

What we're doing in housing; all of that for small businesses -- I think all of that is absolutely crucial.

And the reason we took them is we think they are the policies that the economy needs. And then we just saw the very aggressive action that the Federal Reserve has been taking.

So I think we are absolutely taking the right policies. I have every expectation, as do private forecasters, that we will bottom out this year and actually be growing again by the end of the year.

"We expect the economy to level out in the second half of the year and then begin to recover," Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in prepared remarks....She told reporters after the hearing that she was encouraged by weekly jobless data on Thursday that showed new claims unexpectedly declining and a closely watched four-week average of fresh applications for jobless benefits drop for the third straight week.

The unemployment rate, which is calculated from a survey of homes rather than companies, rose from 9.4pc to 9.5pc, its highest since August 1983.

Dr Christina Romer, who chairs the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said of the numbers: “Of course they are disappointing, I wish it had been better.”

She went on to point out however that even June’s job loss figure was substantially lower than the 600-700,000 monthly job loss figures occurring in the first quarter of the year.

“We are in for some more job losses but my hope and expectation is that we’ll go back to a pattern of moderating job losses,” she added.

The economy will show positive growth before the end of this year, she said, but it needs to be growing at around 2.5 percent just to keep unemployment from rising.

'The trajectory is in the right direction,' Christina Romer, chairwoman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told CNBC television after the August payroll report showed a jump in the unemployment rate, but fewer job losses than expected.

The fact that the nation’s gross domestic economy grew in the third quarter is “incredibly important,” according to President Obama’s chief economist.

If nothing else, it shows that the US economy has turned the corner, moving from contraction to growth, said Christina Romer, chairman of the administration’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).

The unemployment rate, however, rose four-tenths of a percentage point, to 10.2 percent. That this occurred despite the rise in real GDP last quarter reflects both the typical lag between GDP growth and unemployment decline, and the recent exceptional increases in productivity. Having the unemployment rate reach double-digits is a stark reminder of how much work remains to be done before American families see the job gains and reduced unemployment that they need and deserve.

DR. ROMER: Well, you know, we, we were very encouraged last--the last
jobs report, when we saw the unemployment rate tick down. Again, I got to
emphasize, you know, how the change that we've seen, say, in GDP growth,
where we were just plummeting at the first quarter of this year, we're
now growing again. I'll tell you what most private forecasters are
telling us, is that GDP is going to continue to grow, if anything is
going to accelerate. Most of them are talking about positive job growth
sometime in the first quarter. So what usually happens is GDP starts to
grow, then employment starts to grow, then finally the unemployment rate
starts to come down.
<<snip>>
MR. GREGORY: And you thought that stimulus would keep unemployment to 8
percent, and it didn't. It didn't work.

DR. ROMER: I will be the first to say I didn't have a crystal ball. And
certainly I think, you know, what we learned--we learned...
<<snip>>
MR. GREGORY: By this time next year, where will unemployment be, in your
view?

DR. ROMER: Well, I'm--I feel confident it'll be on the way down. As I
said, we've talked about how there will, you know, very likely be further
rises before it, it comes down. You know, what I feel confident is, is
that we're on the right trajectory. And I think what the president has
committed to is doing all that we possibly can so that number comes down
much more dramatically, because that is ultimately what we have to do.

“The usual relationship between G.D.P. growth and the unemployment rate has broken down somewhat,” Ms. Romer, who is on leave from the University of California, Berkeley, told reporters at the White House. “The unemployment rate has risen much more than one would have predicted.”

First-term presidents who had sub-50% approval ratings at the midterms -- including Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton -- saw their parties suffer large congressional seat losses. In contrast, a recovery in Obama's approval rating -- particularly to above 60% -- could limit Democratic losses.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/124076/political-climate-2010-not-favorable-democrats.aspx

What is 'your side?' Surely you agree with me that these things would be good for all of us?

Cyclo wrote:

What is 'your side?' Surely you agree with me that these things would be good for all of us?

Don't twist my words...we aren't talking about what is good for all of us...we're talking about the effectiveness (or impotence) of the stimulus bill. "My side" is with those who feel that the Stimulus Bill was and is ineffective and we'd have been better off allowing the economy to recover on its own.

We'd have been better off letting the economy recovery on it's own?

The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression that followed had severe consequences for the Republicans, largely because of their unwillingness to combat the effects of the depression through direct government intervention in the economy. In the election of 1932, considered the country's third critical election, Republican incumbent President Herbert Hoover was overwhelmingly defeated by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, and the Republicans were relegated to the status of a minority party. Roosevelt's three reelections (he was the only president to serve more than two terms), the succession of Harry S. Truman to the presidency on Roosevelt's death in 1945, and Truman's narrow election over New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 kept the Republicans out of the White House for two decades. Although most Republicans in the 1930s vehemently opposed Roosevelt's New Deal social programs, by the 1950s the party had largely accepted the federal government's expanded role and regulatory powers.
http://www.britannica.com/presidents/article-233984

the economy is fine (when left to its own devices)

The 2009 Obama stimulus bill was focused on restoring economic growth. It was, in effect, based on the belief that if you build G.D.P., the jobs will come. That strategy might have worked if the stimulus had been big enough " but it wasn’t.

Cyclops is profoundly ignorant!!!!!!

Me...changing the goal posts!!!! That's what Obama and the Dems have been doing practically since the ARRA was signed into law. Are you actually asserting that the main premise of the ARRA wasn't to create jobs? Please provide some links of your own from back in Jan/Feb 2009 that don't tie those two concepts together.

The fairly recently passed jobs bill that I think you are referring to is yet another admission that the ARRA failed to stimulate jobs adequately....

I do have links for those names...which you could discover yourself with a quick google search.

The stimulus was intended to create jobs and promote investment and consumer spending during the recession.