STUPIDEST RIGHT-WING CLAIM OF THE DAY: Robert Lucas's claim that Barack Obama's election has permanently depressed U.S. real GDP by 8%

http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/06/01/233155/robert-lucas-argues-that-barack-obama-is-the-most-important-leader-in-american-history/ Matthew Yglesias: "What’s happened, according to Lucas, is that Obama’s policies have caused us to deviate permanently to a lower, European-style growth path. The initiation of Social Security didn’t do that. Nor did its expansion in the 1950s. Nor did the creation of Medicare, Medicaid, Title I federal aid to schools or the War On Poverty. The Clean Air Act didn’t do it. Nor did the Clean Water Act or the Americans With Disabilities Act. George W Bush’s expansion of Medicare didn’t do it. Nothing about the growth of the welfare state in postwar America was able to jar America off the American-style growth path and put it on the European path. And then along came Barack Obama, the Affordable Care Act and a few other bills, and like magic we’re Sweden..... A leading economic scholar thinks Obama’s domestic agenda has been far-and-away the most consequential in American history. It’s kind of a big deal..."