We’re wrapping up 2011’s Obamateurisms in anticipation of starting the voting process next week that will produce our Obamateurism of the Year, and thankfully the President gave us plenty of material from his interview on CBS News’ 60 Minutes. Barack Obama told Steve Kroft that he never said that recovery would come quickly or easily:
I didn’t overpromise. And I didn’t underestimate how tough this was gonna be. I always believed that this was a long-term project; this wasn’t a short-term project.
Wait a moment, says James Pethokoukis. The Obama White House published its economic forecast in August 2009 with its projections of American economic growth for the next decade, as well as unemployment projections. Want to guess what they were?
In case that’s a little tough to read, Obama projected an annual GDP rate in 2011 of 3.8%, which would be a neat trick, since the best quarter this year has been an annualized growth rate of 2.0%. He also projected the jobless rate in the fourth quarter of this year to be 8.0%, which would also be a difficult mark to meet with a 9.0% and an 8.6% so far and no sign of job creation on the horizon. Obama might get close on this point for December, however, by driving a few hundred thousand more Americans out of the reporting workforce.
Next year looks even better. Obama projected in 2009 that 2012’s GDP growth rate would be 4.3%, with the fourth-quarter jobless rate dropping to 7.5%. Sounds just like Recovery Summer, doesn’t it?
Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at [email protected] with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.
Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!
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