Jack & Jill Politics

B-Serious had to take this week off, so I volunteered to post about President Obama’s weekly address today.

Reiterating points made during his State Of The Union and subsequent speeches this week, President Obama first reminds us just how precarious this country’s economic situation was when he took office in January 2009. One year ago, the U.S. had experienced the largest six month economic decline in 60 years. For the past six months, that trend has reversed, displaying the largest economic growth in six years.

Message: Things were seriously jacked up when I took office. Remember that? Remember how horrible and uncertain we all felt? We averted disaster and are getting back on track, but that’s not enough.

The president spends the balance of his time talking about his administration’s planned focus and efforts on both job creation (via infrastructure projects, tax policy adjustments and small business loans) and deficit reduction (via a “non-security” spending freeze on some discretionary government spending).

Message: We know. We know. We know that the economy isn’t working for everyone, and we need to hustle to increase employment if we want to have a real impact (and save our own jobs). To respond to both real long term economic risk and call the bluff of those on the right whining about deficits, we’re on that too!

My thoughts.

Barack Obama came on the scene under economic conditions that were just horrible enough to help him get elected. He took office under economic conditions that may be just horrible enough to prevent him from being re-elected (worst case) or to severely hamper his ability to govern by losing many Democratic seats in Congress this November.

The relationship between a president and the economy is fuzzy at best. Given how complex our domestic economy is (see: high frequency trading), how intertwined it is with the economies of other nations and how little of the economy is under direct government influence, most presidents can have only limited power, especially in the short term, over our economic situation. By 2012, the odds are high that our economy will have recovered significantly from the 2009 lows, and President Obama, through a combination of legitimate claims and savvy maneuvering, can say, “Look what I did.”

How much of that happens before this November, however, is way up in the air.