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**Written by Doug Powers

Joe Biden has said the administration owns the economy now, but the President Obama has been a little slower to come on board… until now.

From Real Clear Politics:

WCCO-TV correspondent: “When I finally did have a chance to talk to President Obama one-on-one, I asked him at what point does the economy become his fault and not his predecessor’s?”

President Barack Obama: “It’s always my responsibility. I’m less interested in allocating blame then just making sure that we’re taking every step we need to, to move the economy forward. And, you know, traditionally after big financial crises like this the economy takes a longer time to heal and we’ve seen some progress. In the private sector, we’ve seen over two million jobs created and this year alone, over a million jobs created. But, it’s just not enough yet to have an impact on everybody who needs help out there.”

Does this mean no more blaming Bush?

Or Europe & earthquakes?

Or ATMs?

We’ll see if the blame game lightens up or intensifies heading into 2012. My money’s on the latter. The self-imposed three-year deadline for economic recovery is looming and the believability of Bush-blame is fading away over time, so the pressure’s on when it comes to finding something or someone new and original to blame.

In the same interview, President Obama was asked the question that voters will be asking themselves one year from now: “Are we better off now than we were $4 trillion… er, I mean 4 years… ago?”

“Well, you know, I think we are better off now than we would have been if I hadn’t taken all the steps that we took,” a hesitant Obama said. “I don’t think the country is stronger yet then it was when the economy was still booming and we didn’t have Wall Street crisis, and we didn’t have the housing bubble burst. But, we’ve made steady progress, we just need to make more.”

By way of Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, John Boehner was asked if the US is better off now than when Obama took office. Boehner’s reaction:

**Written by Doug Powers

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