OPINION:
For seven years, President Obama’s economic recovery has been all “faux” and no “go.” The one thing America elected him to do in 2008 — restore the economy — still remains effectively undone as growth continues to be lackluster. It has become clear that when it comes to America’s economy, he takes a uniquely fatalistic approach to its performance.
Mr. Obama kicked off 2015 optimistically in his State of the Union address stating, “Tonight, after a breakthrough year for America, our economy is growing … .” Despite his bravado, 2015 first-quarter gross domestic product (GDP) limped in at just 0.6 percent growth.
Just weeks ago, Mr. Obama doubled down, saying, “Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.” Once again, evidence belies his boast, as last week showed 2015 fourth-quarter GDP to have grown just 0.7 percent.
Bookended by the these airy quarters, 2015 registered just 2.4 percent real GDP growth. That low level matches 2014’s. As mediocre as that rate is, it is just 0.1 percent off Mr. Obama’s best year — 2010 with 2.5 percent.
If these are the best of times for Mr. Obama’s economy, it is not surprising that his overall economic record is also the worst of times for recovery. For his tenure, the economy has averaged just 1.4 percent real GDP growth. Even dropping his first year’s 2.8 percent contraction, his six-year average is just 2.1 percent.
Taking the administration’s own frequently used comparison with the Great Depression, Mr. Obama’s recovery pales. FDR’s first seven years saw real GDP average 5.87 percent — despite two years of contraction (minus-1.3 percent in 1933 and minus-3.3 percent in 1938).
Mr. Obama’s poorer record has come despite numerous advantages. The Federal Reserve has pumped liquidity into the system — instead of taking it out, as during the Depression — and interest rates have been at or around historic lows.
In comparison with when Mr. Obama took office, oil prices are also low now, rather than excessively high.
The president also got to call his own tune legislatively during his first two years. In these, he enormously expanded federal spending, which in turn set the stage for huge deficits and a growth in federal debt by roughly 150 percent.
If the federal tax burden is high now, it is only because he set the top rates there in a showdown with a Republican Congress. The current oversight of the financial system is also one that he approved.
Yet despite these advantages, seven years after the crisis ended — one far less severe than the Depression — America gets another year in a string of tepid economic growth.
After so long, it is difficult to not see Mr. Obama as having a fatalistic approach to America’s economic performance. Unlike virtually any other area during his presidency, Mr. Obama seems willing to take a passive hand in addressing the economy.
When he first took office with huge Democratic congressional majorities, he signed a so-called stimulus bill, which had been delegated to Congress to craft and was no more than additional spending. Mr. Obama’s interest lay elsewhere — with his health care plans — and showed the marked contrast existing with when he is engaged.
Such a take-charge approach has marked his time in office. He has pushed through legislation when he could — as with Obamacare. When he could not move Congress, he has resorted to executive power even to the point of questionable constitutionality — as with immigration. He has even gone abroad to pursue his policy aims, as in his deal with Iran and to secure a global climate deal in Paris.
Mr. Obama has never been shy or passive about pursuing his priorities. So as his term draws to a close, it is fair to ask whether the economy has ever been his priority. Instead of the standard Americans have set for their economy for generations, does Mr. Obama have another one?
Tellingly in this year’s State of the Union, he may have given more of an insight than we understood: “The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.” Perhaps that is his standard — not one of American economic exceptionalism prevailing since the nation’s founding, but simply one better than the rest of the world.
If so, 2016’s first month of global and domestic economic and financial volatility reveals the hollowness of that standard. Being better than bad is still not necessarily good. And that essentially sums up what America’s economy has been for the past seven years.
Mr. Obama does deserve kudos for one thing when it comes to the economy: It is not easy to get a job to fix a mess and then retain it based on the argument that the mess is less messy, and this should be good enough.
• J.T. Young served in the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget, and as a congressional staff member.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.