Made It Worse?

One of the lies told by Mitt Romney goes something like this: “President Obama didn’t cause the recession, but he made it worse.”  While the first part of that statement is true, the recession was the culmination of five Presidential terms of political policies based upon supply-side economic theory, lower taxes, and fewer regulations over the banking/financial industry.  Keep in mind that twenty years of failed policies cannot be totally reversed in a three year period into a President’s first term.  This is made even more the case when there is nothing but obstruction on the part of Congress to any legislation that is aimed at improving the economy.  If an individual broke a leg, that would happen in less than ten seconds, but the leg would be in a cast for as much as eight weeks for the bone to heal and it would take another six months at minimum of rehabilitation to return the leg to original strength.  The twenty years of economic policies that “fractured” the American middle class cannot be “healed: in three years. It is unlikely that all of the damage done can be fixed under a single President’s administration.  While the first three years have seen the creation of over 4.5 million private sector jobs, the public sector has lost over 500 thousand jobs in states and localities under Republican control.  While heading in the right direction, the economy is far from “healed”.  However, it should also be obvious that the creation of 4.5 million private sector jobs and 27 consecutive months of job creation fails to meet the description of “making it worse”.  When it comes to the economic future there is little certainty.  But, one thing is for certain...repeating the same policies that caused the recession is not the best policy to reverse the recession and more aggressive policies like those that caused the economic meltdown under President Bush will not reverse the economy under a Romney President.  If “making it worse” is the goal, Romney is your man for President.