Of course Obama sees the recovery as 18-24 months in the making. From the WaEx:
A letter provided to Washington Secrets from Obama to a long-unemployed Portland, Maine carpenter pulls back the curtain of economic hope to reveal the truth about the stagnant economy. “I won’t lie to you,” Obama penned in hand to Charles Oliver in October. “It will probably take another year or two to fully dig our way out of this hole.”
Oliver had written the president in June to ask: “Are we as Americans going to be alright?” Answered Obama, “Yes, we will be ok. Because America has gotten through tough times before, and because of good people like you.”
While happy for the response, Oliver told us that he hasn’t seen any of the recovery the president and media have been heralding. “He’s out campaigning saying everything is coming up roses. He’s a lying SOB,” Oliver said of Obama, who has tried to temper his hopefulness with cautions that the recovery could hit speed bumps.
Why?
Simple.
Credit card debt. Most Americans are paying those bad boys off. The economy started tanking in 2007, and with refinancing and so forth, most folks will not feel their income loosening until early 2013.
The problem? Tax increases and the Obamacare mandate will suck in that and more by 2014 and stall the economy again… unless Congress acts to prevent it.
A quick note on these cards… most of them are typed out by a copywriter, but written by a machine that — literally — holds a pen or marker and writes out the letter. Same with signatures… so don’t be fooled by a “hand-written” letter from the President of the United States. That’s a bit of a shame, though — an era truly gone.