The Abysmal Economy

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about the abysmal economy while Bush has been President. An examination of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) percentage change numbers since 2001 brings this statement into question as the chart below demonstrates.

The chart gives some idea of how various events since 2001 have affected the economy. These numbers would usually be considered good numbers in general for economic growth. Of course other numbers are looked at in measuring an economy, but GDP is the standard number looked at to determine how an economy is doing.

(Go to BEA Chart if you can't see this one that well.)

I tend to believe the private sector has a much bigger part in good economic numbers than the government. If anything, I tend to think the government is much more likely to harm an economy, so that the best course of action it can take is to get out of the way of private business, except in a narrow range of issues where the government must step in.

That does not mean I do not recognize that our economy is currently going through some very troubled times. However, I do not think it is fair to use the present troubles to ignore the good economic numbers the GDP has shown since 2001, simply because one does not like the current President in office.