President Obama blamed George W. Bush for the poor economy when he was in office. It was a main talking point in his political speeches about how he was going to implement change to fix the economy and not do what George W. Bush did when he was in office.
Now, he claims that he is the reason that the economy is doing so well.
This is a classic “You didn’t build that” moment from Obama, where he tries to claim credit for something that has little to do with him. Liberal analysts that now say Obama should receive credit for the bullish job market, and high GDP, are the same analysts that said Trump would crash the economy and the stock market if he won the election (The Hill).
This hypocrisy is a timeless classic, Republicans and Democrats always do it. However, in this case by pre-2016 Democratic talking point standards our economy should be in ruins because of Trump.
President Trump has done the exact opposite of what President Obama did when he was in office, we have seen as a result even faster economic growth proving that these conservative economic policies do work.
The GDP growth has reached 4.2 percent and unemployment has reached its lowest point in over 50 years, not to mention the Bull Market that doesn’t seem to have any brakes on Wall Street (CNBC). Obviously, an economy does not change overnight; certainly, the Obama era policies are still having some effect, but it seems important to note that Obama had a Republican Congress stopping him from taking harmful economic action for 6 years.
You would be hard pressed to point out an economic policy point that the Obama Administration put through that can be directly tied to our economic successes.
The Obama Era growth patterns are typical of post-recession recovery periods. During the Bush recovery from the 2001 recession, the economy grew at a rate of 2.7% on average. During the Obama recovery it grew at an average rate of 2.0%. It has been called by many experts the slowest recovery in U.S. History (CNN Money).
Another sign of change is the behavior within the federal reserve. The Fed in 2015 still was unsure if the economy was in good enough shape to raise interest rates.
The Fed didn’t raise rates until after the Tax reform bill was passed and the Economy began to see significant growth under President Trump such as the 4.2% GDP rate (Fortune).
Whether or not you want to believe it, the Republicans in Congress and the President of the United States Donald Trump have managed to increase the rate of growth that President Obama wants to claim for himself so badly.
The Democrats in Congress have done nothing but attempt to obstruct the progress that has been made so far. In the next few years remember that they do not deserve the credit because they have gone against the very policies that have increased growth and have put our country in a better place than we were under President Obama.
Noah Roux is a junior Political Science major and President of the BU Republicans.
