Obama’s Approval Tanks Over the Economy and ISIS
For a while, President Obama enjoyed a revival in popularity after years of public unease and displeasure with his stewardship of the economy and foreign policy. His approval rating jumped as high as 49 percent in mid-January, according to Gallup, and then tapered off a little amid renewed uncertainty about the economic recovery.
In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, however, 45 percent of Americans say they approve of Obama’s job performance, while 49 percent disapprove. That is his weakest rating in the survey since late 2014. The president effectively lost five points in approval since January and he hasn’t seen majority support since May 2013, according to survey analysis.
Analysts blame the decline in the president’s approval on continued economic anxiety at home – despite a drop in the unemployment rate to 5.4 percent in April and other signs of economic revival – and the advance of ISIS and other Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria.
The condition of the economy consistently has topped the list of voters’ concerns heading into the 2016 campaign. The economic gains touted by the administration since the end of the Great Recession in June 2009 apparently haven’t been enough to calm fears, analysts say.
Seventy-three percent of those surveyed recently remain worried about the economy’s direction, and among them Obama’s approval drops to 35 percent, according to the survey. What’s more, Obama gets only a 31 percent approval rating specifically for handling the advance of ISIS militants, with 55 percent disapproving. Public approval of the president’s handling of the war against ISIS is 16 percentage points worse than his rating on handling the economy.
Number of the Day: $132,900
The cap on Social Security payroll taxes will rise to $132,900 next year, an increase of 3.5 percent. (Earnings up to that level are subject to the Social Security tax.) The increase will affect about 11.6 million workers, Politico reports. Beneficiaries are also getting a boost, with a 2.8 percent cost-of-living increase coming in 2019.
Photo of the Day: Kanye West at the White House
This is 2018: Kanye West visited President Trump at the White House Thursday and made a rambling 10-minute statement that aired on TV news networks. West’s lunch with the president was supposed to focus on clemency, crime in his hometown of Chicago and economic investment in urban areas, but his Oval Office rant veered into the bizarre. And since this is the world we live in, we’ll also point out that West apparently became “the first person to ever publicly say 'mother-f***er' in the Oval Office.”
Trump called Kanye’s monologue “pretty impressive.”
“That was bonkers,” MSNBC’s Ali Velshi said afterward.
Again, this is 2018.
Chart of the Day: GDP Growth Before and After the Tax Bill
President Trump and the rest of the GOP are celebrating the recent burst in economic growth in the wake of the tax cuts, with the president claiming that it’s unprecedented and defies what the experts were predicting just a year ago. But Rex Nutting of MarketWatch points out that elevated growth rates over a few quarters have been seen plenty of times in recent years, and the extra growth generated by the Republican tax cuts was predicted by most economists, including those at the Congressional Budget Office, whose revised projections are shown below.
Are States Ready for the Next Downturn?
The Great Recession hit state budgets hard, but nearly half are now prepared to weather the next modest downturn. Moody’s Analytics says that 23 states have enough reserves to meet budget shortfalls in a moderate economic contraction, up from just 16 last year, Bloomberg reports. Another 10 states are close. The map below shows which states are within 1 percent of their funding needs for their rainy day funds (in green) and which states are falling short.
Chart of the Day: Evolving Price of the F-35
The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act signed in August included 77 F-35 Lightning II jets for the Defense Department, but Congress decided to bump up that number in the defense spending bill finalized this week, for a total of 93 in the next fiscal year – 16 more than requested by the Pentagon. Here’s a look from Forbes at the evolving per unit cost of the stealth jet, which is expected to eventually fall to roughly $80 million when full-rate production begins in the next few years.
