U.S. Secretary of Treasury John Snow announced Tuesday the U.S. economy is finally positioned for growth of about 4 percent over the next two financial periods, according to figures determined by the National Association for Business Economics.

Snow’s announcement drew controversy the next day, when a forecast released by the Anderson school of the University of California — Los Angeles announced the projected growth was not likely and predicted another year of small growth.

Such is generally the case, said Peter Orazem, economics professor at Iowa State.

“You can’t predict the economy’s growth with certainty,” Orazem said. “[People forecast because] they want to have some idea of what’s going to be happening in the future, but they don’t know all the factors that are going to influence it.”

Robert Lowry, associate professor of political science, also questioned the significance of the National Association for Business Economics and UCLA’s findings.

“You get five different economists together, they’ll give you six different projections,” he said.

Whatever the growth may actually end up being, Orazem said the current facts are clear: The recession is over.

In fact, the recession has been over since 2001, he said.

“The economy is no longer in recession,” Orazem said. “Right before 9/11, the economy went into recession, and it lasted roughly 6 months. Things have improved since then.”

The technical definition of a recession is when the economy contracts for two successive quarters, he said.

The problem with the economy now is not the lack of growth, but rather the uncommonly slow rate at which it’s grown, Orazem said.

“This expansion is relatively slow and not really dramatic, but nevertheless it’s an expansion,” he said.

“So, in that sense, Bush is correct. Things are better than they were. On the other hand, it hasn’t increased employment dramatically.”

The unemployment rate has risen during Bush’s tenure, resulting in the loss of roughly two and a half million jobs, Orazem said. The rise led to an unemployment rate of about 6.1 percent in August, a rate not seen since the 1980s.

However, the economy’s shaky condition is not entirely the fault of the Bush administration, Orazem said.

“The economy is not as strong as it was when Bush took office. How much of that is Bush’s fault? Probably not a whole lot, just like Clinton wasn’t really responsible for the growth that happened when he was in office,” Orazem said.

Lowry said the recession is more in the hands of investors and the markets than the president.

“Obviously, tax cuts and that sort of thing has some effect, but it’s a lag effect, and it depends on what kind of cuts they are,” Lowry said.

“But … presidents only have a limited ability to effect the economy. They try to take credit for it anyway, probably because they always get blamed when it goes bad.”

Lowry said matters of the economy will either hurt or save Bush’s re-election bid in 2004.

“In his case, I’ll bet he’s really mindful of what happened to his dad, who was very popular after the first Gulf War, but lost, mostly because of concerns over the economy, plus the fact that he broke his ‘No New Taxes’ pledge,” Lowry said. “But it’s well-conceded now that the economy actually had turned around about six months before the election. People just hadn’t really felt the effects of it yet. And I’m sure that this George Bush knows that just as well, and I’m sure he wants to claim as much credit as he can as early as he can.”

Recent polls show a slight majority of Iowans disapproved of Bush’s handling of both the federal and national budgets. Bush has suffered an 18 point drop in approval ratings in Iowa since May.

Orazem said one of the most evident and potentially dangerous drains on the economy is the growing war debt.

He said the war has been funded primarily through deficit spending, essentially borrowed money, on the part of the government.

“So far, the resulting interest rates haven’t been too bad, so it’s probably not been too much of a negative on the U.S. economy. But, if the drain continues and the longer this goes in, it’s basically taking resources that could be spent in terms of investment or employment in the U.S.”

He said the proposed cuts in the federal Pell grant awards, halted by the Senate earlier this week, were likely due to the looming deficit.

“One way to finance additional tax cuts or additional expenditures for homeland security and the war is you have to take money away from something else,” he said.

— The Associated Press contributed to this article.