Obama's Spending a Shaky Foundation for Consumer Confidence
By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
On Monday the White House revised the upcoming year's deficit projections upward to nearly $2 trillion, a single year record. Budget Director Peter Orszag blamed the gap in expenditures over receipts on the economic crisis Barack Obama inherited upon taking office.
Strictly speaking, this is an inaccurate assessment in that it fails to acknowledge the record amount of spending Obama and the Democrats in Congress have proposed, promoted, and authorized in an effort to stimulate the economy. To them, as it is for many of Obama's supporters around the country, the bad news is still all Bush's fault.
The electorate may be feeling better about the economy. Data collected by the Gallup Organization in the week before the new deficit numbers were announced show "another surge in consumers' overall economic mood" alongside increased consumer spending and more positive views about the job market.
The Gallup Consumer Mood Index is based on Americans' answers to two questions regarding current U.S. economic conditions and the direction of the economy. It surged to -50 last week, the polling firm said Tuesday, reaching "a new high for the year, almost matching the Index's best weekly level since its inception in January 2008, and totally erasing the brief pullback in mood at the end of last month." Gallup cautioned, however, that the Index "indicates that consumers as a whole remain negative about the U.S. economy and its future direction" despite the improvements since early March.
Consumers' negativity has diminished significantly on both dimensions compared with early March, Gallup said, but this has been most pronounced with respect to the economy's direction. One might expect that the bad deficit numbers may lead to a new surge of increased negativity and dampen the enthusiasm that all but the most hardcore supporters of the current administration and its policies might be starting to feel. "Perceptions of current economic conditions remain much more negative than positive," Gallup says, with only 12 percent calling them excellent or good versus 46 percent giving them a poor rating. Which means the positive news rests on a very shaky foundation.
Check out our political cartoons.
- Read more by Peter Roff.
- Read more from the Thomas Jefferson Street blog.
- Read more about the economy.
Tags: economy | Barack Obama | consumers
Tools: 
Share
|
| Comments (3) | Print
Reader Comments
Blame game -- Look at Demopcrats!
President Bush tried to get bills passed that would have helped us not get into such a big financial mess. He warned Congress at least eight times that the large banks --especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would be in serious trouble if they were not regulated by Congress. But everytime he warned Congress and a Republican tried to get a bill passed for the President the Democrat Leaders in House and Senate refused to act, Now we are in big trouble with a President that was put ito office largely by the influence of Liberal Media. Hillary might have been a better choice than Obama! But our country will go down hill fast with Obama's spend, spend, apend tacktics that our children and grandchildren will pay for many years from now.
Enough is too much!
It is amazing how much scrutiny we place on spending and the economy NOW. Maybe if some of the attention had been paid during the previous administration and their 8 year reign of terror, we wouldn't need be in the mess we're in now. The Bush administration was given a blank check to do whatever they wanted. This country is so caught up in party politics, that they can't see the big picture. The Republicans can't get past the fact that they lost. They are so bent on getting the white house back that they will say and do anything. They have spent the last eight years using scare tactics to get what they want. First it was terrorism. They used that to trick us into a war that never should have started. Why didn't they ask about the needless spending that caused? What about the lack of regulation that Bush allowed to plague the housing industry? Preditory lending?? Does that ring a bell? For all the people who attack Obama and the present congress, I just have one comment. What is your VIABLE alternative. If what he is doing is, in your view, the wrong approach, then provide some options that will help everyone. NOT JUST THE TOP 10% that we've been catering to for the past 8 years.
People are scared!
As long as all the major news sources, college instructors, labor unions, etc., worship Obama and the left, the Democrats can continue to blame Bush and any conservative.
Until we have a major terror attack or those of us taxpayers, including those who voted for the Democrats, realize how our tax bills are going up, this blame game will continue.
We need to feel sorry for the younger generation who will pay for all of this and supposedly they were the one's instilled through their highschool and college faculty to vote Democratic in this last election.
I see a lot of fear in our part of the country.
advertisement
