Mitt Romney sat down with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow, and made a curious observation. He said voters who want a strong economy should vote for him, but Americans “ought to give, whichever president is going to be elected, at least six months or a year to get those policies in place.”
At first blush, that may sound fairly reasonable. A president takes office, he or she needs time to put a team in place, craft an agenda, and get to work. What’s more, we generally don’t see the results of economic policies immediately; the agenda needs time to take effect. In Romney’s mind, six months to a year seems fair.
But let’s go ahead and apply this standard to President Obama, who took office in the midst of the worst global economic catastrophe since the Great Depression. Hey, look, here’s a new chart I put together.
So according to Mittens, President Obama is doing pretty good. Six months after he was sworn into office, almost three million jobs were created. And in February 20, 2010 – one year after the President took office, almost 4 million jobs were created.
Contrast that to George Bush, who spent 8 years in office to see a little over 3 million jobs created.
