Rove says the economy is doing well; most people don't think so

That's a very simple way of putting it, but according to this article from Bloomberg.com, Bush's economic efforts have gone largely unnoticed, mostly because they haven't done anything for those of us who need it.

Political experts say it may be a tough sell: Voters don't feel optimistic, polls show, and growth rates are expected to slow as the housing market cools and gasoline prices remain near all-time highs.

[...]Seventy percent of 1,002 respondents in a May 8-11 Gallup poll said the economy was in fair to poor condition, up from 63 percent in an April poll.

Now that's some numbers. But perception isn't always reality. It could be that people feel that way because they're not looking at the big picture.

People either feel it in their day-to-day lives or they don't, and no amount of repetition of abstract numbers to the contrary is going to change their perceptions,'' says Bruce Bartlett, a policy analyst in the Reagan administration and author of a 2006 book critical of Bush.

By most major indicators -- from a historically low 4.7 percent unemployment rate to strong corporate profits to the stock market -- the economy is moving forward. ``We are like marathon runners winning the race,'' Edward Lazear, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a May 23 interview.

[...]In his AEI speech, Rove, 55, emphasized the creation of 5 million jobs in recent years. He also said Bush's tax cuts have stimulated growth, making up for revenue lost with lower rates. A tax reduction on stock dividends to 15 percent from 40 percent prompted the biggest companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to raise dividend payments on 725 occasions, he said. That money is ``going into retirement funds and individual retirement accounts and people's pocketbooks,'' he said.

And he described ``core inflation,'' which strips out food and energy, as low, citing a U.S. Labor Department report showing a 2.1 percent gain in the 12-month period ended in March.

But if that's the case, then why do people still feel pessimistic about the economy?

Since the last recession ended in November 2001, the U.S. has added a net 4.35 million jobs, or an average of 82,000 a month, according to the Labor Department. That's less than half the 9.57 million jobs, or 181,000 a month on average, created in the same period of time after the previous recession ended in April 1991.

``Almost all the benefits of productivity growth have gone to firms, and very little to workers,'' says Harvard University economist Jeffrey Frankel, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Bill Clinton, whose adviser James Carville used the slogan, ``It's the economy, stupid,'' to stress the importance of the issue in the 1992 election.

One explanation for the public malaise may be the distribution of prosperity. Total compensation for Americans fell to 65.4 percent of national income in 2005, down from 66.2 percent in 2001, Federal Reserve figures show. At the same time, corporate profits rose to 12.3 percent of national income, up from 8.5 percent in the year Bush took office.

Oh, maybe that's why.

``The risk is that Democrats can play on the old `Are you better off than you were?' and a lot of Americans are feeling that they're not,'' says Tim Penny, a former Democratic congressman from Minnesota who backed Bush's plan to overhaul Social Security last year. ``This really is a referendum on Bush's tax cuts in an environment in which voters are feeling pinched economically.''

Bush aide Hubbard says the administration is confident of the outcome of such a referendum. ``We would love to debate whether people are better off today than they were 5 1/2 years ago,'' he says.

Maybe he shouldn't be sounding so confident there. But maybe he's just keeping his game-face on until they've lost, like a true professional.