March 14th, 2009

The Wall St. Journal has surveyed forty-some economists and reports that they give President Obama low marks on the economy--his score was 59 out of a possible 100.

What this proves, I think, is that economists are an impatient lot.

Mr. Obama has been in office just fifty days. That's not long enough to build a house or write a novel, let alone turn around something has big as the U.S. economy. I am not an economist; I don't know whether the stimulus package the president proposed and Congress passed is the right medicine or not. I don't know whether it's too small or too big or just right. But I do know that it's too soon to judge how well or badly it's worked.

Critics also charge the president with taking on too many issues--not just the economy but health care and education and so on. Well, we have a lot of problems. Why shouldn't an energetic young president take a run at them? Of course he won't fix them all, but things may just improve in some of those areas. That would be a positive change from our last president who will be remembered, I expect, mainly for the wars he got us into.

Anyway, let's give the new guy some time, some breathing room. If after a year in office he hasn't fixed everything, then we can really let him have it. Or maybe two years? We'll be electing a Congress then. In my view it's Congress, not the President, that really needs to clean up its act--stop being rigidly partisan and start legislating. Just a thought, guys, just a thought.