Frank: Economy Back to Normal By Summer 2010

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said that the economy will have recovered by the summer of 2010 — in time for Democrats to reap political benefits before the midterm elections.

“I think the recovery will begin later this year, and I think the advantage the Democrats are going to have, frankly, is that [President-elect] Obama’s taken office with an economy in the dumps, and by the summer of 2010, I think we will — we will have gotten back to normal,” Frank said on National Public Radio Thursday. “That’s the optimum from the political standpoint, although that’s not what anybody is trying to do — the sooner the better.”

Frank made similar remarks in The New Yorker. He predicted that the recovery from the stimulus plan pushed by Democrats and Obama would lead to a recovery that would begin six months before the 2010 elections.

Frank, the House Financial Services Committee chairman, said he thought Obama would do “enough overall” with the stimulus plan he has put proposed. But Frank suggested it wasn’t perfect.

“I have some difference because I think they may be doing too much tax-cutting and not enough direct spending from the standpoint of immediate job creation,” he said.

Obama has called for $300 billion in tax cuts, which have been viewed as a play aimed at winning bipartisan support.