So How Bad Was/Is It?

I was having some slightly good conversations with a few friends this weekend about America's current state of affairs. The friends were a mixed group of political ideologies. None exactly confined to one strain of thought and I wouldn't dare try to classify them being as one way or the other.  They did, however, seem to think the situation Barack Obama inherited was no different than what Reagan did in '81...and dare I even mention the poor sap who claimed George W. Bush inherited a much worser economic situation in '01.

Then this morning I was reading TPM and saw this nice chart Calculated Risk put together.  If only my iPad would come in, it would make my weekend conversations much more beneficial.

As you can clearly see, the situation currently is way worse than either Reagan or Bush inherited-- at least in terms on job losses.  As a former political staffer, campaigner and policymaker, I can't think of anything more important (or more troubling) than job losses.  So as the first realm of issues go, Obama inherited a mess. And it's a mess that isn't getting any better any time soon.

If the argument were President Obama isn't doing enough to make things better, or that Obama's policies are having slow positives on a very bad situation then I would be inclined to agree.  But if we are talking about how Obama's situation was routine for incoming presidents then I'd have to strongly disagree.

Even if you look at GDP loss, the incoming Obama administration saw the worst of the worst.  Numbers not seen since The Great Depression.  All around, it was just bad. And that's not even bringing up the fact that Obama also inherited two ongoing endless wars.  No elected president in history has ever inherited such a mess.  An economy in total free fall tripled by two massive wars with no ends in sight does make it a little difficult to get a running start.

This is not to make excuses about slow progress.  It's just to show that assuming past presidents have had to deal with the same severity of problems as our current one is factual inaccurate.