Sen. Dan Sullivan Saturday criticized President Barack Obama for lowering Americans' expectations for a full economic recovery, by calling his very weak economic record the "new normal."



"The American dream has become a mirage for millions of American families," the Alaska Republican said in Saturday's GOP address. "The average annual GDP growth rate for America is nearly 4 percent. The Obama administration's annual rate has been about 1.5 percent; in fact they've never even hit 3 percent GDP growth in one quarter."



The national economy has suffered since Obama started his second term, said Sullivan, and said the last quarter's 0.5 percent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) shows a "stagnant" indicator for the economy and the American dream.



But meanwhile, Obama has "taken to bragging about his administration's economic record," said Sullivan.



Lawmakers have a "moral imperative" to change the fact that "we have experienced a lost decade of economic growth and opportunity, and we have to change this," Sullivan in the address. "But in order to do all of this, we're going to need a change in Washington — a change that doesn't settle for the 'new normal' economy."



Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton has said that "millions and millions and millions of people look at the pretty picture of America President Obama has painted and they can’t find themselves in it."



The number of Americans participating in the labor force is now at its lowest rate since 1978, Sullivan pointed out, as more Americans have fallen into poverty.



Further, family paychecks have declined, the number of people who depend on food stamps has gone up by 40 percent during the Obama years, and the percentage of Americans who own homes is down 5.2 percent.



"Something is terribly wrong in our country when a leading Democrat recently bragged that ‘we’re going to put a lot of coal miners and a lot of coal companies out of business," he said, referencing Hillary Clinton. "But it doesn’t have to be this way."





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