Obama’s Economic Advisor Admits to Trouble

by Pearl Hahn 

Christina Romer, who heads President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, made a surprising admission on October 22 before the Joint Economic Committee. It was widely predicted and believed that Obama’s massive stimulus package would prevent rising unemployment and create jobs. Romer, who co-authored the administration’s economic recovery plan, admitted four days ago that the stimulus is failing to stave off growing unemployment.

Last January, Obama vowed to create up to 4 million new jobs without mention of the net loss of jobs as a result of increased government spending. Now, Romer says, “unemployment is unlikely to end 2010 much below its current levels” and that it will not be possible for unemployment to remain under 10 percent. So much for the CBO’s projection of increases in GDP and employment. Actually, the CBO predicted only short-term increases in GDP, followed by a net decrease between 0.1 percent and 0.3 percent by 2019.

In other words, one can expect things to get worse, not better, for the next ten years.

Pearl can be reached at pearl@grassrootinstitute.org.