The Obama Administration inherited an economic situation analogous to being promoted to pilot of an airplane with its engines on fire, in a flat-spin stall, losing altitude at a terrifying rate. The pilot of any craft in this situation canu2019t be docked for losing more altitude, that was going to happen anyways- the question in this situation is whether or not theyu2019ll get it under control before hitting the deck. Not only did they do that, the Obama administration would go on to preside over the longest period of sustained economic and jobs growth in American history.When the Obama administration took office, the economy was shedding jobs at a rate of 900,000 per month and contracting at sickening speed. This economic contraction can hardly be attributed to their administration, unless youu2019re willing to grossly distort fact and history in order to assign responsibility there.The Obama administration not only inherited a financial crisis worse than any since the Great Depression, there were more complications to deal with before they could get started:The prior administration had cut taxes deeply, and was running large deficits already.The prior administration had relaxed rules on financial speculation, which caused prices on commodities to reach all-time highs (indeed, the price of Gasoline topped out at $5.45 in 2022. before demand collapsed out from under it- and the same sort of thing had been happening with foodstuffs as well). This, along with loose credit rules and non-regulation of what might otherwise be called industrial-scale financial fraud had inflated a credit bubble so large that when it collapsed, it not only dragged down major financial houses with it, it also happened in a time where people had been borrowing just to keep up. Kablooey.The prior administration wasnu2019t accounting for the wars it had engaged in on the budget- by accounting for them as if they cost something (which they most certainly did), the Obama administration acknowledged as fact what the prior administration wasnu2019t accounting for.This made the deficit look instantly larger, simply by telling the truth about it- and when the Obama administration told this truth, the GOP opposition blamed them for the deficitu2022 that their administration had created.Prior to the previous administration, congress had passed a set of forward-thinking policies we now call u2018Automatic Stabilizersu2019, which are laws that prescribe counter-cyclical spending and non-collection of certain taxes in cases where the economy is in trouble [Automatic Stabilizers: There When Congress Isn't], and when the Obama administration followed these laws, the GOP (despite loving tax cuts in all other circumstances) decided to instead howl in fury about all that spending.The stabilizer policies called for things the GOP usually favors (de facto tax cuts) but because they didnu2019t want Obama to receive credit for them, they instead blamed him for the resulting deficits.Speaking of the GOP, the Obama administration faced for a full 8 years an intransigent opposition, one that openly declared it wanted Obama to fail. This meant that every push for a jobs bill or infrastructure bill was resisted with a scorched-earth politics intended to deny Obama any opportunity for a legislative win, once the GOP gained control of congress.All of this meant that while the economic crisis unfolded during the early days of the Obama administration, the GOP and its media complained tirelessly about how much the president u201cloves to spendu201d, and how he was bankrupting the country. It was as if the entire party had suddenly forgot that theyu2019d just had control of economic policy, and when they had it, theyu2019d squandered near-zero deficits, started wars without paying for them, enacted Medicare Part D without paying for it, and presided over a loosening of financial regulations that would feed into the financial collapse.So basically, the Obama administration is widely regarded to have cleaned up a giant mess, because it inherited one and turned out the longest period of sustained economic growth and jobs growth in American history.Given that they had to do it with a majority of congress working to subvert every item of his agenda it could, history will judge the Obama administration quite kindly. They produced good results, given the circumstance.Itu2019s true that the debt went up significantly in the 8 years of Obamau2019s administration. But itu2019s not true that his administration contributed substantively to new spending- to the contrary, his administration would reduce the year-over-year deficits every year of his administration- a feat that not one single Republican administration has done since Eisenhower.When you focus on the debt increases but fail to acknowledge the significant improvements (in economic trajectory, employment, market growth, economic growth) that happened on Obamau2019s watch, youu2019re not really seeing the whole picture or telling the whole story.