Republicans have been doing EVERYTHING possible to ensure the economy does not perform to peak capacity; they believe that is the only way they can get rid of President Obama.  Let’s consider a few pieces of evidence for my claim:

• The Republican controlled House of Representatives left Washington at an earlier time than any Congress in modern history despite several serious pieces of legislation that needed to be addressed (source).
• Senate Republicans blocked a bill that would have “created jobs for up to 20,000 veterans” not even 30 days ago (source).
• Since Republicans have taken control of the House – Congress has been the least productive Congress in modern history (source).
• Republicans have blocked jobs bill after jobs bill to prevent a stronger economic recovery (source).
• Republicans blocked more bills in Obama’s first two years than at any other time in Congress’s history (source).

That’s the Republican record of putting party above country; their actions have demonstrated a disregard for America’s best interests.  And yet – President Obama has been shrewd enough to push for more tax cuts targeted to the middle class, avoiding harmful austerity which has been harmful to Europe and the IMF has concluded would damage our economy (source).  He pushed through a significant stimulus that was simply not big enough but was still very significant; in fact 93% of economists surveyed felt the stimulus helped the economy (source) even though the Republican party seems to believe that the economy would have just fixed itself in time without any assistance.  Let’s look at the state of the economy now:

#1 – Consumer confidence is at a 5 year high (source).

#2 – U.S. unemployment claims are at a 4.5 year low (source).

#3 – Unemployment is at its lowest rate in 4 years with 7.8% (source)

#4 – Home builder confidence in the last 12 months is the largest gain in history (source).

#5 – U.S. growth while slow is better than Canada, Australia, the UK, Japan, Germany and France (source).

#6 – Manufacturing in the U.S. is growing while China’s manufacturing industry has shrunk 11 months straight (source).

#7 – Under President Obama – the U.S. has experienced “the longest stretch of employment gains in manufacturing in almost two decades” (source).

#8 – Automobile sales are the best they’ve been in over 4 years (source).

#9 – Thirty one straight months of private sector job gains with over 5.2 million private sector jobs since January 2010 (source).

#10 – The S&P 500 is up 81% since Obama took office (source).

#11 – The U.S. ranks #1 in clean energy investments (source).

#12 – America’s dependence on foreign oil is at a 13 year low (source).

#13 – Corporate profits are at an all time high (source).

#14 – Core CPI inflation is below historical averages at around 2% (source).

#15 – The Congressional Budget Office projects 9.6 million jobs will be created in the next 4 years under the current path (source).

No – it’s not perfect.  There is still much left to be done.  And if Republicans would stop trying to block everything the President has proposed … then more would be done for the economy.  But no matter what they say – the economy is recovering significantly.  Those are the facts.

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