It seems as though weekly, if not daily, we are all bombarded by economic statistics from the Federal Reserve, the Department of the Treasury, the Congressional Office of the Budget and economists from across the political spectrum. For the next ten months leading up to the November elections, we will hear from both political parties and their candidates for President, the US Senate and the Congress competing stories concerning the state of the American economy.

While all of this torrential rainfall of economic data pours down upon us, a majority of our citizens are experiencing the economy in their day-to-day lives. By significant majorities most do not feel good about their situation or the future of our economy in general.

We are told the recession ended over a year ago. Most Americans have not noticed or experienced that event.

Some facts concerning the American economy are useful in understanding what is really going on:

n There is unanimous agreement our aggregate government debt and our annual Federal deficits must be dramatically reduced as they are one of the primary causes of the failure our economy to recover from the 2008-2009 recession. This is simply because money extracted or borrowed from the general resources available in our economy is thus diverted from private sector spending and job creation.

n While the Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's average and corporate earnings continue to be positive we are simultaneously facing unemployment statistics of 8.5%, but in reality, if one added back in both the jobs lost and the number of people who have ceased to even look for work, the real unemployment rate is probably in the neighborhood of 15 - 18 %. We are now told, based on these statistics that our economy is recovering but it is a “jobless recovery.” Hardly the kind of recovery anyone is applauding.

n Significant majorities of voters do not feel they are under taxed. It has been repeatedly suggested the “rich” do not pay their share. This has now become a major discussion in our Presidential campaign. The Congressional Office of the Budget issued a report in 2011 which addressed this question. They concluded the top 1% of wage earners paid 29.5% of all Federal taxes and the top 20% of wage earners paid 53.3 percent of all Federal taxes, while the bottom 20%, given refundable tax credits paid no taxes. In fact, they received 5.6% of gross income taxes collected back into their pockets. It seems clear that wealth envy has political benefits. The reality is, if the top 5% paid 100% of their income to the Federal government, we would still be in a severe annual deficit position with the aggregate long term debt continuing to increase and the deficit would be funded by borrowing from other nations close to 40% of every dollar we spend. We are spending well beyond our ability to afford it. Sorry.

Understanding how our economy works is unfortunately a subject on which most of us have hardly any academic educational background. This is true and sad. It impacts our lives daily.

It is also incorrect to compare the American economy of the 1950s, '60s, or ‘70s to the current American economy because it is truly a mistake of huge proportions. The earlier economy was driven by a set of factors which no longer exist. Worldwide competition in manufacturing did not exist at that time. Whether we like it or not, we are now participants in a global economy. While each State in the Union competes against each other for jobs and economic activity, we too, as a Nation are in competition with other nations. It is not helpful that of the eleven industrial economies, our manufacturing tax rate, our corporate tax rate, our ability to write off capital expenditures and our capital gains tax is aggregately the worse when compared to these other countries. Even here in South Carolina our manufacturing tax rate is triple the national average. Therefore, it is not hard to imagine why we fail to attract manufacturing jobs that go to other States.

The simplest way to understand why our economy continues to lag is to consider the efficiency of your truck. When it is correctly tuned and in good working order with nothing in the flat bed, the engine and all the working parts perform optimally. If you do not change your oil, keep your engine tuned or load up the flat bed with hundreds of pounds of material, the truck performance will dramatically drop.

The American economy is just like your truck. It is overloaded with impediments for it to function properly. That is all the economics you need to know.

Hopefully at some point between now and November, our candidates for office will tell us how they plan to get our truck back on the road and performing at its best.

Lynn Mueller is a veteran Republican campaign consultant who has joined Swatzel Strategies. His bi-monthly column in the Georgetown Times focuses on economics and politics.