[mrbowler]

All depends on your timeframe, and everyone has different opinion whether or not he will get credit or no credit for the improvement. Also not sure what everyone's definition of short term-long term. The U.S.A. from a overall macro view IMO has been in decline for the last 25 plus years-sure we have periods in which the reported numbers have shown general economic prosperity, but if you dig deeper you realize that many jobs created/lost have resulted from the buildout of service related/government related jobs. The jobs created coming out of these recessions lately have been very poor, and eventually the general business cycle will emerge-this time will be much longer because you have long term structual problems that haven't been addressed well, and the economy is at the point in which the only way to create jobs is for the government to create funny money & increase the debt-this has worked in the past at least from a short term perspective, but eventually the day of reckoning is coming say 40 years if we continue down the same path. I posted a couple years back about the coming recession/housing bubble if you want to read just search my username. This year will basically be a horrible year as far as jobs are concerned-with housing problems, foreclosures, credit problems-people are hunkered down, and it will take some time before all the stimulus actually starts to turn the ship around-if it turns then you will get some higher taxes(maybe more at the upper income folks-will have to watch see how that develops). This president is saddled with a huge amount of baggage from the previous president who was sorely lacking in management skills-you have seen this countless times that the job was to much for Bush (IMO).