THE RACE: Economic report unwelcome news for Obama

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Wash­ing­ton, Fri­day, where he signed the United States-Israel Enhanced Secu­rity Coop­er­a­tion Act. (Asso­ci­ated Press | Susan Walsh)

TOM RAUM

Asso­ci­ated Press

Pres­i­dent Barack Obama’s cam­paign team hoped that by now, the lethar­gic U.S. econ­omy would be perk­ing up as it had for Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan in the sum­mer of 1984, set­ting the stage for Reagan’s re-election rout.

But it is not to be.

New gov­ern­ment fig­ures show eco­nomic growth is slow­ing, not pick­ing up speed — mean­ing Obama will con­tinue to face eco­nomic headwinds.

The econ­omy grew at an annual rate of just 1.5 per­cent from April through June, down from 2.0 per­cent the pre­vi­ous three months. While that showed it was still grow­ing, if slowly, and not tot­ter­ing back into reces­sion, there was scarce other good news in the report for Obama — and plenty of ammu­ni­tion for Republicans.

They piled on at once.

“It’s a pic­ture of a decel­er­at­ing econ­omy,” said Glen Hub­bard, eco­nomic adviser to GOP chal­lenger Mitt Rom­ney. House Speaker John Boehner saw “a trou­bling sign for the future of our economy.”

“Clearly there’s a lot more work that has to be done,” acknowl­edged White House econ­o­mist Alan Krueger.

Both sides know the sta­tis­tics: Growth below 2 per­cent won’t lower an unem­ploy­ment rate now hang­ing at 8.2 per­cent, and no pres­i­dent since Franklin D. Roo­sevelt has been re-elected with the job­less rate over 8 percent.

Rom­ney held more meet­ings in Lon­don on Fri­day and was attend­ing open­ing cer­e­monies of the Sum­mer Olympics. “It looks to me like Lon­don is ready,” he pro­claimed on NBC’s “Today” as he sought to defuse a flap over his ear­lier com­ments ques­tion­ing the city’s preparations.

He goes next to Israel, an ally he accuses Obama of offending.

In what was hardly a coin­ci­dence, Obama on Fri­day released an addi­tional $70 mil­lion for Israel as — with some fan­fare — he signed a bill expand­ing US-Israeli ties. Later, he had fundrais­ers in town and in sub­ur­ban Virginia.

Posted by AP News on Jul 27 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.