Democrats Say Good Riddance to August
Tuesday, August 31, 2010 at 01:25PM Equity bulls aren't the only ones happy to see an end to August. Democrats in Congress have had a pretty rough month as well. While Treasury Secretary Geithner kicked off the month with a New York Times op-ed titled "Welcome to the Recovery", the data coming in hasn't exactly been positive. As August comes to an end, recovery is now the last thing on most Americans' minds.
Deservedly or not, Democrats in Congress have been taking heat for the lack of strength in the economy. Based on the Intrade contracts to bet on Democratic control of the House and Senate, the Democratic Party collectively had its worst month of the year. At the start of August, the contract for Democratic control of the Senate was trading at 73.5 while the contract for control of the House was trading at 44. One month later, the contract for control of the Senate is down 10.2 points to 63.1, while the contract for control of the House is down 19.5 points to 24.5. It looks as though equity investors aren't the only ones hoping for a September surprise.
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Reader Comments (2)
It is absolutely deserved that the Democrats are taking heat for the economy. They have been in control of the purse strings of government (the House and the Senate) since 2006 and in control of the executive branch since 2008. Their actions have made things worse not better. No one can possibly declare that things were not tough when they took over. But in this country its all about the delta - what you do when you take over. And the vast majority of actions taken by the Democrats since taking over have been job killers. A health care bill of over 2,000 pages that will only increase health care costs in this country - and yet nobody knows by how much. A stimulus bill of $800 bilion that rewards governmental unions and gives the states a big fat excuse from getting their financial houses in order. A financial regulatory bill that does not even mention Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac and is filled with the possibilities of all sorts of new agencies with governmental regulators that did noting to stop the problems in the first place.
Looks like that trend has hardly settled and we have a full two months to go....
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