of each president and not saying word one about the economies they inherited, until now.
I think Obama faced a lot more resistance from Congress in trying to improve the economy than Bush did.
Bush had a Republican Congress for 4 years, a divided Congress for 2 years, and a Democratic congress for 2 years.
Obama had a Democratic Congress for 2 years, a divided Congress for 4 years, and a Republican Congress for 2 years. And a Republican Senate majority leader whose declared goal was to make Obama a one-term president. And who stole a Supreme Court nomination.
It took a longer time for the economy to recover from the housing bubble crash because it was a deeper crash than the dot-com crash. The housing bubble crash was certainly crashing a lot harder when Obama took office, than the dot-com crash was when Bush took office.
I got nailed by an observant righty...she correctly pointed out that Bush's 8yr average unemployment rate was lower than President Obama's 8yr average....that sucked.
I'm surprised you had a tough time dealing with that. It just might have something to do with the unemployment rates they inherited and the momentum of the economy they inherited.
Bush inherited a 4.2 unemployment rate in January 2001
and the economy had gained an average of 116,000 jobs/mo over the last 3 months (Nov 2000 thru January 2001)
Obama inherited a 7.8% unemployment rate in January 2009
and the economy had lost an average of 739,000 jobs/mo over the last 3 months (Nov 2008 thru January 2009)
So frankly, I'm not "sucked" out that Obama's 8 year unemployment rate was 2.1 percentage points higher than Bush's given that he started out with a 3.6 percentage point disadvantage (7.8%-4.2%). (Bush's average unemployment rate: 5.3%, Obama's 7.4%).
You can say Obama was in a hole and there was nowhere to go but up, even with a hostile Congress that was as assholic as it was. But it could have gone down a lot further too.
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