Barack Obama's "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED"

Guess what? The $787 billion porkulus bill wasn't meant to stimulate the economy after all.

According to ABC News:

Turns out the $787 billion "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" (AARA) was not designed for full economic recovery, but rather to "stabilize" the downturn. That's the word from White House officials today, who held off-camera briefings with reporters on how the AARA is working so far.

"This legislation was designed to cushion the downturn," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "That's why we have always talked about this as one function of economic recovery."

When pressed about the change in terminology, Gibbs said he was not trying to temper expectations after the fact. "I can probably find 15 or 20 occasions when I said this in the lead up," Gibbs said, explaining that he had always defined the AARA as part of a "multi-legged stool."

Senior Economic Adviser Jared Bernstein said that the economy is improving -- or at least getting "less bad." And he said, that's a good thing.

"It's always challenging to explain that things getting less bad is actually a necessary path on the way to them being good, but that's the truth," Bernstein said. "The trends have to go recession, stabilization, recovery. Negative, less negative, positive."

Karl Rove has something to say about this.

So what's a president to do when the promises he made about his economic stimulus program fail to materialize? If you're Barack Obama, you redefine your goals and act as if America won't remember what you said originally. That's a neat trick if you can get away with it, but Mr. Obama won't. His words are a matter of public record and he will be held to them.

When it came to the stimulus package, the president and his administration promised, in the words of National Economic Director Larry Summers, "You'll see the effects begin almost immediately." Now it's clear that those promised jobs and growth haven't materialized.

So Mr. Obama is attempting to lower expectations retroactively, saying in an op-ed in Sunday's Washington Post that his stimulus "was, from the start, a two-year program." That is misleading. Mr. Obama never said if his stimulus were passed things might still get significantly worse in the following year.

Barack Obama's Perilous Economic Predictions

As bad as the deficit is and as bad as Obama says that it's going to be, economists are warning that Obama is much too optimistic.

President Barack Obama’s economic forecasts for long-term growth are too optimistic, many economists warn, a miscalculation that would mean budget deficits will be much higher than the administration is now acknowledging.


The White House will be forced to confront the disconnect between its original, upbeat predictions and the mainstream consensus about how the economy is likely to perform in a new budget forecast to be unveiled next month.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24899.html#ixzz0LFHTGYgS&C

Already it appears that Obama's forecast for this year was way too optimistic.

The Economy Is Even Worse Than You're Being Told

Mort Zuckerman tells the tale that the mainstream media won't.

The cumulative job losses over the last six months have been greater than for any other half year period since World War II, including the military demobilization after the war. The job losses are also now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years, making this the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all job growth from the previous expansion.

When the economy was roaring under Bush, the mainstream media emphasized every tiny little inconvenience and did such a good job of it that a plurality of Americans believed that the US was in a recession even when the economy was white hot.

Wal-Mart Sales Up

What if they gave a recession and not everybody chose to participate?

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. says sales of groceries and items such as flat-screen TVs boosted its same-store sales in April above Wall Street expectations.

The world's largest retailer said same-store sales rose 3.2 percent, easily beating Wall Street's 2.1 percent growth forecast. Including fuel, same-store sales climbed 3.8 percent.

The sales figure, which counts only stores open at least one year, is considered a key measure of a retailer's fiscal health.

Same-store sales rose 2.6 percent at namesake Wal-Mart stores and 6.6 percent at Sam's Club, excluding fuel.

Total sales for the four weeks ended May 2 rose 10 percent to $29.18 billion.

Good Economy Versus A Bad Economy

It depends upon who is in the White House.