Six Months of Obama Stimulus: 2.8 Million Lost Jobs
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For weeks Obama Administration officials have warned that unemployment would rise from present levels. A lot. Yesterday Press Secretary Robert Gibbs looked grim as he told reporters he expected today’s employment report from the Labor Dept. to show “several hundred thousand jobs lost” and a higher unemployment rate for July – higher than June’s 9.5% rate.
But this morning’s report shows the July unemployment rate actually came down a tick to 9.4%. The survey of employers showed a net loss of 247,000 jobs in July, compared to 443,000 in June and 303,000 in May. Today Gibbs tried to claim success, saying the employment statistics were “more evidence that we have pulled back from the edge of a depression.”
President Obama appeared briefly to assert that these unemployment data are “additional signs that the worst may be behind us.”
Apparently, the White House knew yesterday what today’s report would look like and worked to lower expectations so they could plausibly spin horrible data as a success of sorts. Most of the media are trying to help, with sparkling speculation about an end to the recession, and better times ahead.
Recently, Obama, his various spokesmen and his media supporters donned their Econ professor hats to tutor us from history that re-employment has always been a “lagging indicator” as recessions end and recoveries begin. True enough. But that’s not what they said in January and February. Back then, when they were furiously selling the stimulus, they said spending $787 Billion in borrowed funds would make this recession different, that job losses would halt, and millions of new jobs would be created – immediately.
We may be seeing a few of the typical early indicators of an end to a recession, including a rising stock market. If so, employment will improve eventually, as it always has, months or years, later. When employers finally start rehiring, Obama will take credit, claiming his stimulus “worked” and his critics were wrong. Until then, administration officials will remind us that employment is a lagging indicator.
Let us hope Obama doesn’t succeed in piling the lead weights of government health care, cap-and-trade, and massive deficits on the faltering economy. The downside if he does fail to enact his agenda? The economy and employment may recover enough to persuade voters not to punish the Democrats in the next election, so they keep their majority giving Obama another chance to enact his noxious agenda. Heads he wins, tails we lose.
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This is Bush’s recession. Eight years of horrible Bush policies ruined our economy. Obama can’t undo eight years of stupidity in a few months.
The stimulus is working fine. It gives extended unemployment insurance and health care for victims of the Bush recession who lost their jobs. It keeps cops and firemen on the streets and teachers in the classroom.
Conservatives have no ideas and nothing to say but NO!
The recession has bottomed out. Obama has done what he said he would do. He has brought the economy through the storm. 270,000 jobs gone in a month is bad but less than half the numbers when Obama started.
This is finally the beginning of the end of the catastrophe brought on by bush and his wall street friends.
Obama is a Chicago politician. If you don’t live here you don’t get it. Any lie, any dirty trck, any illegal act, any treachery is fair game in Chicago. nothing is out of bounds.
Now hes sending union goons to intimidate senior citizens who come to town halls to exercise free speech RIGHTS.
This President is bad news for us. The polls are showing people are starting to figure it out. If his polls fall enough the politicians in Congress will be scared to follow his lead. But he could threaten them with political retribution if they don’t play the game his way. that’s how we do things in Chicago.
Health care is a big problem but Obama doesn’t know how to make it better. His Chicago style ideas will only make it worse, a government service, like the post office. Your doc will be a federal employee. punching a clock for a paycheck.
abbynstone and thousand flowers cite the usual leftist pabulum.
In a soon to be published essay on this blog a definitive alternative to Obama’s policies is laid out. And its not “just say no” as abbynstone simple mindedly states.
Secondly, the economy has not in fact bottomed out. GDP is still contracting. Its simply a fact. As the essay will point out, Q3 may enjoy a temporary blip, but the “V” shaped recovery Obama and his supporters are counting on is quite problematic at this point. An L is looking very likely.
However, there is one thing we can count on. Obamaphiles are on record that his policies have worked and we are on the road to recovery. But if the next six months aren’t so rosy, we can rest assured they will be backtracking, calling it once again the Bush economy that Obama inherited.
That’s because they are not sophisticated enough to argue what is really going on in the economy or the merits of policy alternatives.
They are just mindless cheerleaders.