Thank You, David Gregory
THANK YOU, DAVID GREGORY: Yes, this is the second post in a row to pick on Christina Romer, head of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers. But this exchange was too good to pass up:
MR. GREGORY: There’s an effort across the administration to sound more confident about the economy. The president, speaking on Friday, said this:(Videotape, Friday)
PRES. OBAMA: If we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, then we’re going to get through this. And I’m very confident about that.
(End videotape)
MR. GREGORY: And yet last year during the campaign, Senator John McCain said something similar. This is what he said back then.
(Videotape, September 15, 2008)
SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ): You know that there’s been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street, and it is–it’s–people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think–still, the fundamentals our–of our economy are strong, but these are very, very difficult time.
(End videotape)
MR. GREGORY: So back then during the campaign when Senator McCain talked about the strong fundamentals of the economy, it was then-candidate Obama and his team that roundly criticized McCain, saying he was out of touch, he didn’t get it, he didn’t understand how bad the economy was. And yet now the president’s talking about the strong fundamentals of the economy. So what’s different between then, the campaign, and now, except for the fact that the economy’s gotten dramatically worse?
DR. ROMER: I think when the president says he’s focusing on fundamentals, what he means is, is we’re focusing on, on fixing the fundamentals; that we’ve always said we’re not looking at the ups and downs of the stock market, we’re looking for those crucial indicators: when are jobs turning around, when are sales turning around, when do we see consumers coming to life? That’s the kind of thing that–certainly that I’m looking at in terms of when’s the economy going to be doing better and, and when can we see some hope.
MR. GREGORY: Are the fundamentals of this economy sound?
DR. ROMER: Well, of course the fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology. We know that, that temporarily we’re in a mess, right? We’ve seen huge job loss, we’ve seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we’re in a, in a bad situation. [Emphasis added]
MR. GREGORY: All right, but then what’s different between now and then, when the economy was in even better shape than it, it is now, when McCain was saying the fundamentals were strong and then-candidate Obama criticized him?
DR. ROMER: I think–again, I think what, what we’re saying is that the, you know, where we are today is obviously not good. We have a plan in place to get to a good place. I think that’s the crucial–a fundamentally crucial difference, is to make sure that you have put in place all of the comprehensive programs that’ll get us back to those fundamentals.
The other thing I think is so important, the president has actually said in terms of fundamentals, we need to make changes. That’s why he’s focusing on energy, education, getting the budget deficit under control, precisely because he said…
MR. GREGORY: Right.
DR. ROMER: …when we get through this thing, we want to be in a better place.
MR. GREGORY: But perhaps Senator McCain was right when he said the fundamentals of the economy were strong, because you have President Obama saying roughly the same thing now?
DR. ROMER: I really think you’re misinterpreting the president. I think the key thing that the president was saying is we have our eyes on the fundamentals, that is why we’re concerned about.
There is no such thing as the new politics. Say it three times out loud.
Cross-posted at Conventional Folly
11 Responses to “Thank You, David Gregory”
McCain was almost right. He just said it 700 Billion dollars too soon. And that may not be enough to fix the Credit system. Obama has included another 750 Billion as contingency in his budget.
Gregory makes his point outside of context; great for sound bites, but not so much a true parallel. When McCain spoke the economy was teetering due to a credit market caught with its pants down and its fat assets hanging in the breeze.
I'm certainly not saying that Obama has fixed the problem, but at least the credit market has regained some of its decorum.
HemmD is absolutely right. McCain said this right before the credit market collapsed. That was a time when a very key part of the fundamentals of our economy was NOT sound. What Obama is trying to say is that we are NOW on the road to recovery. What McCain was saying was that we weren't really in trouble, which just wasn't true.
You two have got to be joking if you think the $700 billion has been applied in such a way as to fix the credit markets.
Hate to be a parser, but Obama mentioned the fundamentally sound aspects of the economy, while McCain said the fundamentals are sound. The former indicates that there are some good parts of the economy, and others are left undocumented. The latter says that the whole economy is sound, which it was not then and is not now. Now of course McCain goes on to list particular things he had in mind when he said the economy was sound. Perhaps those were just examples of the fundamentally sound economy, or perhaps those were the only aspects of the economy that were fundamentally sound in McCain's view. Hard to say. Still, Obama should be criticized for lifting the statement out of context, and McCain should be criticized for all the times he did the same.
Senator McCain said the economy was sound on Sept. 15 when the Dow Jones average was nearly 11,000. The most recent bottom on March 9 was near 6500, a drop of about 40% over six months. Emergency measures taken since the end of the year have apparently stabilized the situation, see chairman Bernanke's recent comments on “60 Minutes”. The context of these statements by McCain and Obama have been taken so far out of context it's almost laughable.
CS
I'm not kidding, but I'm certainly not optimistic the 1.5 trillion (700 b bailout and 750 b in the budget.) will be enough I've said before that AIG is on the hook for 13 trillion in insurance coverage; AIG is too big for our government to not let fail but it may be too big to save.
I was commenting on Gregory. He is making a false comparison between the two statements outside of the context of their utterance.
AIG appears to have sent the bulk of its bailout funds to pay off debts in Europe. That was to keep the EU afloat.
The fact that Europe hasn't gone belly up makes Obama's statement less rose colored glass-like, but it may still be whistling past the graveyard.
McCain said everything was OK, oops no it's not- let me suspend my campaign, oops, I'll vote against it, oops I support it.
That's not exactly the same thing.
Pacatrue- when McCain was criticized after the statement was taken out of context, he specifically said the same thing that Obama's saying now- that he was referring to the quality of our workforce, infrastructure, etc.
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