So when is lackluster economic growth a good thing? When it happens in the first quarter of an election year in which an incumbent Democrat president is attempting to win re-election and when the organization reporting this bad, or "good," news as they laughably attempt to categorize it is National Public Radio.
Here is the NPR comedy act performance by Scott Neuman in which he attempts to spin the lousy economy as a good thing:
On Friday, the government reported that the economy grew at a 2.2 percent pace in the first quarter, down from the 3 percent rate at the end of 2011. The Federal Reserve this week said it expects growth to "remain moderate over coming quarters and then to pick up gradually."
Common sense says high growth rates are good and slower, more modest ones are not so good. But is that always the case? After all, the "irrational exuberance" of the early 2000s helped bring on the recession as people borrowed and spent their way to prosperity.
It's definitely not the case for Scott and NPR when the slow economic growth inconveniently occurs during an election year when a certain President Obama is forced to face the voters on the ballot in November. Of course, if a Republican incumbent had the same lousy economic record, NPR would be howling over the failure of his policies.
UPDATE: According to Rush Limbaugh and other sources, this NPR headline originally read "Is Slow Growth Good For The Economy?" before being changed to "Is Moderate Growth Good For The Economy?" Even NPR must have realized how ridiculous the original headline appeared.
