Are Dems insane for vote for Obama again?

[Piscator]

Originally Posted by zimmy

Obama's economy: A snapshot - Job growth (1) - CNNMoney

Keep clicking to the next bunch of charts to get the whole story. Here are a few tid bits:

Part of the decline has come as some Americans have gone back to work, but also because many workers have dropped out of the labor force.

During the first three months of 2009, the economy slumped at an annual rate of 6.7%. Since then GDP has been growing and slowly recovering, but the rebound has been a lackluster one compared to those following prior recessions.

Home prices have moved up and down since the start of Obama's term. Lifted in 2010 on the back of the Recovery Act's homebuyer tax credit, prices later fell when the credit expired. But overall, the trend has been lower, and housing remains in a major slump.

Gas and food prices have had a few temporary growth spurts in the past few years, but overall, inflation has remained relatively low, held back by falling home prices and stagnant wages.

Three-and-a-half years ago, filling up at the pump cost around $1.60 a gallon. But then, gas prices began to climb, eventually topping out at nearly $4 a gallon in mid-2011, and coming pretty close again in 2012. Since then, prices have fallen back a bit, but at $3.35 a gallon, are still nowhere near 2009 levels.

The financial crisis of 2008 spurred a big chunk of spending increases and tax cuts to stem the pain of the downturn. That's a key reason why debt held by the public -- individual bondholders, big investors, and foreign governments -- has increased significantly since 2008. That jump will have to be paid off with interest.

Much of those emergency measures will end, so for the next decade annual deficits should be much lower than they've been recently. But over the long run, debt is still projected to grow faster than the economy. Policymakers will have to address it soon, or risk not being able to fund everything Americans expect their government to do.

The bank bailout and federal stimulus programs aimed at juicing the economy pushed up spending significantly in fiscal 2009, which began in October of 2008. Revenue, meanwhile, fell to 60-year lows as the economy slumped and millions of people lost their jobs. That, in turn, increased safety net spending.