August 11, 2012
Those wondering why the Obama administration has not been more aggressive in pushing for stimulus got their answer today in a Washington Post article on the selection of Representative Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate. The article includes a statement by Jim Messina, the head of President Obama’s re-election campaign:
Messina attacked Ryan by saying:
“As a member of Congress, Ryan rubber-stamped the reckless Bush economic policies that exploded our deficit and crashed our economy. Now the Romney-Ryan ticket would take us back by repeating the same, catastrophic mistakes.”
Actually, the economic policies that “exploded our deficit” helped the economy to grow. The deficit had come to down to sustainable levels by 2007. The economy crashed in 2008 because the housing bubble, which had been left to grow unchecked, collapsed and brought the economy down with it. While Bush, along with the Greenspan-Bernanke Fed, can be blamed for ignoring the growth of the housing bubble, it is blatantly absurd to blame the economic collapse on the deficit.
Presumably Messina has some knowledge of this recent economic history. That means that he is fabricating a story to attack his political opponent. Alternatively, he is completely clueless about the economy and President Obama has given his top campaign position to a person astoundingly ignorant about the economy. Either way, the Post should have corrected Messina’s statement for readers who may have been misled.
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