Is this Barack Obama's economy yet?

Congressional Republicans are trying to make it such. Their constant refrain, and taunt, is: "Where are the jobs?"

The Obama administration set itself up for this with foolish predictions about the effectiveness of its stimulus package. White House economists predicted that, if the stimulus package passed, unemployment wouldn't exceed 8 percent and 3.5 million jobs would be created or saved.

The stimulus package passed in February. The unemployment rate is now 9.8 percent. The economy has lost 2.7 million jobs. Republicans are trying to pin the blame for job losses greater than the predictions of White House economists on Obama's policies.

The Obama administration retorts that, without the stimulus, things would be worse. The latest pronouncement from the White House economists, who are still employed, is that the stimulus has in fact already created or saved 1 million jobs.

This is a childish econometric game grownups should ignore. There's utterly no way to measure jobs saved or even come up with a reasoned estimate, not that reasoned estimates have proved to be the Obama administration's forte.

The stimulus has produced very few jobs directly. So, virtually all of the Obama claim has to be of jobs saved. There are 131 million non-farm jobs in the United States. So, which ones would have disappeared if the stimulus package hadn't passed? There's no place to even begin an intellectually honest inquiry into that question.

So, it's a fair conclusion that, so far, the stimulus plan has been a bust. But that's different than saying that Obama is to blame for the current high rate of unemployment or the increase in it since he became president. In fact, there are deep economic corrections taking place beyond the ministrations of politicians. The alternative policies pushed by Republicans wouldn't have altered this contour much either.

American consumers have significantly retrenched in the wake of the housing bubble bursting. Overall consumer spending has been rather stagnant but a more enlightening indication comes from state sales tax figures. States try to tax the tangible things consumers buy. According to the Rockefeller Institute, state sales tax collections are down 9.5 percent over the previous year.

Businesses have responded to this contraction in consumer demand by shedding jobs, costs and inventories. They've done a good job of it, which is why the stock market is recovering.

Obama didn't cause the housing bubble while in the Illinois legislature. Obama didn't cause the housing bubble to burst while he was in the U.S. Senate. And his stimulus package hasn't caused the contraction in consumer demand.

Politicians don't want to say it because people don't want to hear it. But there's not much government can do during periods of significant economic corrections except expand the safety net to help people cope.

If government gives skittish consumers money directly through rebates, they save it or use it to retire debt. And, as the stimulus experience demonstrates, government just moves too slowly and clumsily to effectively compensate for a drop in aggregate demand, as classical Keynesian economics calls for.

This nonsensical economic blame game is a bipartisan indulgence in cynical opportunism. Democrats blamed George W. Bush for a recession that began in March, 2001, two months after Bush became president and before any of his economic policies were enacted into law.

That's not to say that politicians don't have considerable influence on the longer-term economic trajectory. Obama is pursuing many policies that are likely to lead to sluggish economic performance even after this economic correction in reaction to the bursting of the housing bubble runs its course.

If Obama's policies are adopted or still under active consideration and in two years the economy is still sluggish, he can fairly be held partially to blame.

But not for the current high rate of unemployment.