By Peter Schroeder and Jordan Fabian – 02/10/16 06:00 AM EST
Seven years after President Obama’s inauguration, the debate about whether he saved the economy or held back its recovery is in full swing.
Obama has been taking a final-year victory lap, touting a national unemployment rate that has fallen to 4.9 percent as the latest sign of success for his economic stewardship.
Yet critics in Obama’s orbit, including Democratic congressmen and a former member of his Cabinet, suggest more could have been done if Obama had worked harder with lawmakers and members of his administration.
Rep. Collin Peterson (Minn.) — one of two Democrats still in office out of the 11 who voted against the stimulus
legislation — said the White House made zero effort to bring him, or other centrist Democrats, on board in the fight over the stimulus.
“They just wrote us off, I think,” he said. “I can’t even tell you who in the administration is supposed to be lobbying me.”
It’s a criticism of Obama that has remained steady for his entire presidency: He doesn’t work well with others, whether they are Republicans or Democrats, who disagree with him.
“This is very much a my-way-or-the-highway White House, and this is a president who would rather win the argument than get something done,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, head of the American Action Forum and the top economic adviser to Obama’s Republican opponent in 2008, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.).
Obama allies say such criticism is unfair and blame Republicans for failing to work with Obama since day one.
“There’s no question that had Congress enacted the president’s economic proposals, the economy would be in a stronger position today,” said Alan Krueger, a Princeton economist who was a top economic adviser to Obama.
https://thehill.com/policy/finance/economy/268856-obamas-economy-the-fierce-debate