Obama Flip-Flops On The Economy

You didn’t have to follow NBC’s The West Wing to know the power of messaging in politics. Follow news from our nation’s capital and you soon learn that truth matters less than how people perceive the truth. In Washington, some politicians almost create new realities with the stories they spin. In the past few weeks, it happened right before your eyes…

The Obama “Talk Down the Economy Express” is off the tracks. The new Administration finally decided their doom-and-gloom messaging was a little too negative. Until the beginning of this month, Obama and company had dispensed pessimism as if it were candy. Then the $787 billion stimulus package passed. Add to that Chinese concern that their investments in US treasuries might not be very sound. Then the nail in the coffin was former President Bill Clinton’s unsolicited advice:

“It’s worth reminding the American people that for more than 230 years everyone who bet against America lost money,” Clinton told ABC’s Good Morning America. “I just want him (Obama) to embody that and to share that.”

Suddenly, the spin machine wasn’t churning out Great Depression-rhetoric anymore. Perhaps after the negativity helped push through $800 billion in Democrat spending, they stopped the train of thought. Whatever the reason, the White House has changed its tune.

With a freshly inked stimulus bill, Obama switched stories on March 3^rd. In a joint session of Congress, he said “We will rebuild. We will recover. And the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.” Since then he has continued in that vein, concluding with last week’s address to business leaders in Washington:

“I don’t think things are ever as good as they say, or ever as bad as they say. Things two years ago were not as good as we thought because there were a lot of underlying weaknesses in the economy. They’re not as bad as we think they are now.”

Obama is not alone. Though Ben Bernanke isn’t technically in the Obama Administration, the Fed Chairman usually undergirds the President’s economic policies. In the first media appearance in 20 years, a sitting Chairman of the Federal Reserve was interviewed by 60 Minutes on Sunday. Bernanke said the US recession that began in December 2007 will end “probably this year.” Defending both the Bush and Obama administrations, he also said government efforts probably averted a 1930’s-style Depression.

It seems a new reality has been formed in Washington. Whatever was true about the economy at the beginning of February is now a distant memory. With Depressions dodged and recessions ending early, it’s almost time to start buying again – or so the pols would have you believe today. And yet it begs the question about our economy…what’s the truth?