It seems to happen every week: Some new piece of good economic news comes out, and Republicans sink a little deeper in the polls. In late April, it was estimated that the economy had grown by 4.8 percent during the first quarter of the year. A few days later, new jobs numbers came out. It turns out that 5.3 million jobs have been created since August 2003. The unemployment rate is 4.7 percent — well below the average of each of the last three decades. The stock market continued to rise, and looked likely to hit a record soon.
The public responded to all this good news by turning a little more against President Bush. In a mid-April poll by Gallup and USA Today, 36 percent of the public approved of the president’s performance in office and 59 percent disapproved. In an early-May poll, approval had fallen to 31 percent and disapproval had risen to 65 percent. Bush’s 23-point deficit had widened to 34 points.
Perhaps it is because economic growth isn't enough. Walk or drive around your town. How many check cashing stores, signs saying "we buy houses" with a phone number and rent-to-own places do you see? I see too many in Knoxville to believe that the economy is truly healthy. Maybe that's why people don't approve of the President's handling of the economy. Or perhaps people have noticed how incompetent that the Bush administration is in almost every area, and are convinced that they can't do anything right.
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