The Economy is Getting Better and Its Because of the Obama Administration

Despite public opinion otherwise and the growing unemployment rate, the economy is getting better. And despite taking on the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, the Obama administration is on top of it.

A Bloomberg National Poll in March found that Americans, by an almost 2-to-1 margin, believe the economy has gotten worse, rather than better, during the past year.

The market tells a different tale, though. While President Barack Obama's overall job approval rating has fallen to a new low of 44 percent, according to a CBS News Poll, down five points from late March, the judgment of the financial indexes has turned resoundingly positive.The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is up more than 74 percent from its recessionary low in March 2009. Corporate bonds have been rallying for a year. Commodity prices have surged. International currency markets have been bullish on the dollar for months, raising it by almost 10 percent since Nov. 25, against a basket of six major currencies. In addition, housing prices have stabilized, and mortgage rates are low.

In March, the economy added 162,000 jobs, more than it had during any month in the past three years.

And for those crying of a new socialist government (many without a real understanding -- positive or negative --- of socialism), the Obama team navigated the financial crisis while never losing sight of the importance of private enterprise and private markets.

Like former President Bill Clinton, Obama has raised taxes for higher-income families. Clinton's 1993 deficit-reduction plan raised income tax rates for high-income families to 39.6 percent; Obama plans to return the top rate to the Clinton-era level. He also raised Medicare taxes for individuals earning more than $200,000 to finance his health plan. Clinton aided the working poor with the Earned Income Tax Credit; Obama is doing the same with insurance subsidies in his health plan. A national health plan was an aspiration of both presidents.

Obama inherited two wars and the scariest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

The consensus view now calls for a 3 percent growth this year, significantly higher than the 2.1 percent estimate for 2010 that economists surveyed by Bloomberg News saw coming when Obama first moved in to the Oval Office.

Says Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak + Co., an institutional trading firm in New York, "If Obama was a Republican, we would hear a never-ending drumbeat of news stories about markets voting in favor of the President."

Do you feel that Obama is doing enough to stimulate economy growth and new jobs? The proof is in the pudding.