Where's the Hard Data?

According to the Obama Administration's budget chief, Peter Orszag, the United States' economy seems to have ceased its free-fall. To quote Mr. Orszag: "There are some glimmers of sun shining through the trees, but we're not out of the woods yet."

Hmmm...

We did a little digging and came up with the full transcript of Mr. Orszag's interview on CNN's State of the Union. Then, we tried to read through Mr. Orszag's comments; really, we did. It was difficult, and we might have missed some important details... but we found no specifics on why Mr. Orszag is seeing his "glimmers of sun."

This is a serious problem: if Mr. Orszag wishes to be taken seriously - and, by extension, the Obama Administration - then there should be some real data given to back up claims of recovery. The American citizenry is feeling, understandably, both disempowered and angry. Simply spouting hot air, as it were, in a transparent attempt to make the citizenry 'feel better' about the economy does not assuage the citizenry's just anger.

If the Federal Government is indeed serious about trying to help lessen the severity of the 2007 Depression, it needs to stop the wind-bagging. This trick will continue to work for a while, but we're confident it will lose its effectiveness sometime in the future. Four years is a long time, and if the Obama Administration thinks it can keep saying the economy is getting better (when it is obviously getting worse) indefinitely, they have another thing coming, we suspect. A continuation of this empty bluster will only serve to lay a foundation for a possible disgrace of the Obama Administration.

Incidentally, and in closing, we did a search in the transcript for Mr. Orszag's insipid line about trees and sunlight... but we couldn't find it. Nor could we find the other quote in the Reuters article. Perhaps CNN hasn't completely transcribed the interview, as there is a disclaimed to that effect on the transcript, but we think not. We feel suspicious, but perhaps we should give Reuters the benefit of the doubt; perhaps the writer mixed up sources. Or something like that.