President Obama's policies succeeded

President Obama had barely taken the oath of office when Republicans announced their highest priority was to make sure his presidency would fail. Nearly every day since, they’ve proclaimed his every policy move a failure. Whenever the news was bad, Republicans blame our president. For instance when the stock market fell below 700 points (on the S&P index), my conservative friends called it “Obama’s economy.” But now that his policies are working, and the market is flirting with 1,300 again, they ignore it.

And there are many more improvements documented at that link. The unemployment rate is dropping. Jobs are being created. The auto industry is making a comeback. Manufacturing is improving. The GDP has shown growth in numerous consecutive quarters. President Obama should be getting credit for it.

Instead, even today on the campaign trail, the Republican candidates repeat the same tired refrain. They tell the voters “Obama’s policies failed.” But is that true? The evidence suggests it is not. Despite the Republican party’s best efforts to thwart him, they were only able to slow the recovery down. So sure, the recovery is not as advanced as anyone would like, but the vast majority of economic experts agree, the Recovery Act worked.

Without that intervention the economy would have been much worse today. As the Council of Economic Advisers note, without the stimulus spending, “as of mid-2011, there would’ve been between 2.2 million and 4.2 million fewer Americans employed if the bill had never passed.”

If the Republican party cared about what is good for us as a country and as a people, they would be celebrating this success. Instead, they continue to plot to cause President Obama’s failure — and ours.

[Update: Post slightly edited for clarity]