Our so-called "summer of recovery"

According to the White House, this was supposed to be “the summer of recovery.” Really. Let’s see . . . How is the recovery doing now that the summer is winding down?

The Wall Street Journal gives a very different picture as it lists economic statistics. Earlier this month, first-time claims for unemployment hit a nine-month high. The unemployment rate remains at 9.5% and 18.4% of workers are out of a job, can only get part-time work, or have given up looking for a job altogether. Sales of existing homes dropped 27% from June to July, hitting the lowest point since data were first collected in 1999. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence Index fell to 50.4 in July, continuing a slide that started in February. And the stock market is down 11% from its peak in April.

Does this look like “recovery”? It’s no wonder that the President’s ratings have plummeted even in the area he was supposed to be good at—economics. Around one-third of the public approves of the way he’s handled the economy. That’s disastrous for Democrats, who were promising so much over the past few months.

And it’s not just Obama who has a problem. His Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer—speaking before the 2009 stimulus was approved—said unemployment would top out at 8% by the third quarter of 2009 and decline to less than 7% by the end of 2010. Even the White House now admits that the unemployment rate will stay at or above 9% through 2011.

The stimulus was sold as a fix-all, but reality has set in. Since the stimulus passed, 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs and 1.2 million people have given up even looking for work.

Then there’s the health-care fiasco. After ramming it down the throats of the American people, Obama and his allies told us how wonderful it was all going to be. They have made three claims-- health-care reform will reduce costs and the deficit, no one who wants to keep existing coverage will lose it, and the law's cuts in Medicare won't threaten any senior's health care. Does anyone still believe this??

By overselling the stimulus and the incredibly complicated health-care program, the President has really only accomplished one thing. He’s angered the public to the point of a November disaster for his party. This is not America's “summer of recovery” after all. It’s a wake-up to millions who have seen where leftist rhetoric and action leads.