On June 2, 2012, Henry Blodget, CEO and Editor-In-Chief of Business Insider writes:
“One of the single biggest factors in a President’s reelection chances is the direction of the unemployment rate and monthly jobs numbers in the six months leading up to the election. We’re getting very close to the six-month mark now. And, from Obama’s perspective, the jobs numbers are headed the wrong way.
“Last fall, Ezra Klein of the Washington Post wrote an excellent treatise on how the American economy collapsed. Klein included what might be described as “the chart that will get President Obama fired.”
The chart (below) shows three lines:1. The incoming Obama Administration’s projections for what the unemployment rate would be if no stimulus was enacted in the depths of the financial crisis (light blue).
2. The Obama Administration’s projections for what the unemployment rate would be with the President’s stimulus plan (dark blue).
The actual unemployment rate (through early 2011–it’s now 8.2 percent).
3. The actual unemployment rate in the chart, you will note, is much higher than the “nightmare scenario” initially envisioned by the Obama Administration (with no stimulus). In either case–stimulus or no stimulus–the unemployment rate was supposed to be down to 5.5 percent by now. And it’s actually above 8 percent.
“As the chart makes instantly crystal clear, the Obama administration drastically underestimated how bad the economy was and drastically overestimated its ability to do something about it.“As a result of this, President Obama over-promised and under-delivered on the single most important challenge of his Presidency.
“Also as a result, President Obama gave the Republicans ammunition to argue that his stimulus “failed,” when, in fact, it helped matters considerably (just not enough to fix everything).”
Blodget asks the question: Could the Obama Administration have fixed the economy in four years had they had done something different?
In my opinion, yes.
http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-unemployment-rate-2012-6
