Obama Team Punts Three Times on ‘Better Off Now’ Questions

Speaking on ABC's This Week on Sunday, Senior Obama adviser David Plouffe had few answers for the age-old question, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” On three occasions, he declined to answer the question with a definitive yes or no.

“It took us a long time to get into that hole, it’s going to take us a long time to get out of it,” Plouffe said after the first time host George Stephanopoulos asked the question.

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After the second variation of the question, he said, “We were this close to a Great Depression, and because of the leadership of this president we staved that off. We're beginning to recover.”

Stephanopoulos pressed a third time -- “You still can't say 'yes?'” -- and again Plouffe punted: “We've clearly improved from the depths of the recession.” He went on to list areas where he said matters had improved: manufacturing, lowering the unemployment rate, and in the auto industry.

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