The health of the U.S. economy is even worse than the long-term unemployed might have imagined.
The savants who measure such things reported that the country’s gross domestic product shrank astonishingly in the first quarter of the year — at the rate of 2.9% — when a vibrant economy would have grown by that much.
At a time when polls show Americans looking dimly on President Obama’s handling of foreign affairs, the sudden downward economic arrow may well end up battering him on the domestic front as well. The White House reached for the convenient explanation du jour:
The winter’s polar vortex plunged much of the country into a deep freeze and slashed consumer spending and exports.
Even if the administration is right about cause and effect, that’s cold comfort. An economy knocked to its knees by harsh weather can hardly be considered healthy. Should business fail to pick up substantially in this quarter — many predict that it has — Americans could wake up to find that they are suffering through an officially declared recession.
Imagine what that would do to the standing of a President who was already viewed as unable to get the job done by a majority of the respondents in a recent poll. Imagine, too, the impact on the very limited goodwill that the country is showing for Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike.
The whole bunch of gridlocked do-nothings — Obama, Reid, Pelosi, McConnell, Boehner — have only themselves to blame. Because they have done zero to resuscitate an economy that’s been gasping for more than five years, and plenty to suffocate it.
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