...while identifying and denouncing the lies:
After a rough weekend of Obama surrogates stumbling
around the dreaded “are people better off now than they were four years ago?”
question, it seems like they’re slowly coming around to saying “yes.”
The old strategy was to say “no, of course not, but that
doesn’t matter, because the Bush disease was so awful that nobody could have
done a better job of keeping America from dying on the table than Dr. Obama.”
This was considered the best possible answer, because
only a fool could look at current economic news – unemployment stuck over 8%
for a historic three and a half years, a shrunken workforce, GDP growth
stagnant, consumer and business confidence down, declining median income, a
rising Misery Index – and conclude any of it was better than conditions when
Obama took office.
But it seems like people weren’t really going for the
“good as it gets” argument, so the Democrats have transitioned to laughable
efforts at claiming Obama’s economy really is an improvement.
(*SNORT*)
There are two key pieces of disinformation in this
effort, both on heavy display at the Democratic National Convention. The first
is to cite a single bad month when Obama took office, and a large number of
jobs were lost. This number is then compared to 163,000 jobs created in July. See?
Everything’s better now!
(*GUFFAW*)
Of course, the Democrat pushing this silly talking point
won’t mention that 163,000 jobs barely keeps up with population growth, which
is why unemployment has remained stuck at over 8% for 42 months.
In fact, the official unemployment rate ticked up from
8.2% to 8.3%in July, despite this wonderful Obama "job creation."
(That’s because some people who previously dropped out of
the workforce completely attempted to re-enter it.)
UNSUCCESSFULLY ATTEMPTED TO RE-ENTER IT!
Democrats really hate talking about the people Obama has
blown out of the workforce – they simply do not exist, which is why the heavily
massaged U-3 unemployment rate is gospel unless Democrats want to ignore people
emerging from the shadowy void of long-term unemployment, and talk about raw
job creation numbers instead.
(*SMIRK*)
As the House Ways and Means Committee recently pointed
out, “During the Obama Administration, total employment has grown by a net of
just 33,000 new employees, while the number of people no longer in the labor
force has grown by 7.8 million.
IN OTHER WORDS, THESE 33,000 "NEW" EMPLOYEES
ARE ONLY "NEW" IN THE SENSE OF THE EMPLOYEES PERSONALLY; AS FAR AS
AMERICA OVERALL IS CONCERNED... THE LABOR FORCE HAS SHRUNK BY 7.8 MILLION! (7.8
MILLION FEWER JOBS EXIST!)
During the Obama years, new labor force dropouts have
outnumbered new employees by 237 to 1.
If all these semi-permanently unemployed but officially invisible
workers were added back into the labor pool, Obama’s current unemployment rate
as of July would be 11.7%.
U-6 UNEMPLOYMENT ACTUALLY STOOD AT 15% IN JULY (MOST
RECENT OFFICIAL STAT).
Edward Lazear, chairman of President Bush’s Council of
Economic Advisors, wrote in the Wall Street Journal in July, “There hasn’t been
one day during the entire Obama presidency when as many Americans were working
as on the day President Bush left office.
PRETTY DAMNING STAT, NO?
Moreover, the unemployment rate, which we were told would
not exceed 8% if we enacted Mr. Obama’s stimulus package (the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act of 2009), has never fallen below 8% during his presidency.
(The rate has averaged 9.2% since February 2009.)
You can see why Obama apologists are eager to work some
card tricks with those statistics, cherry-picking whichever number can be used
to make his record look least awful. And
let’s not even get started on the “seasonal adjustments,” or talk about the
horrifying 80,000 job creation figure for June. (How was that George Bush’s
fault?)
Also, picking out a single bad month from early in
Obama’s term to show us how much President Incomplete has improved our position
is especially funny when you consider that every single one of the Obama
Administration’s last 30 awful unemployment reports has included this phrase:
“It is important not to read too much into any one monthly report, and it is
informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are
becoming available.”
(*SNORT*)
Well, unless you really need to make Obama’s policies
look good. Then you can pick any two months, separated by as much distance as
you like, and read as much into them as necessary!
(*DRY CHUCKLE*)
The other cooked statistic thrown around by numerous
Democrats last night, including Bill Clinton, is so bizarrely dishonest that
CNN felt compelled to fact-check it to death: Obama has supposedly “created 4.5
million jobs.”
(Gosh, then how come we still have soaring unemployment,
which appears to be getting worse based on projections for this Friday’s August
report? Obama’s creating a billion
zillion jobs, so what gives with all these unemployed people?)
Simple: the Democrats get that statistic by completely
disregarding the first two years of the Obama Administration.
You heard that right.
The situation has modestly improved since January 2010,
so everything before that simply doesn’t count.
FOLKS... YOU SERIOUSLY CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!
The “4.5 million jobs” talking point is the kind of
argument that would make sense only to a very small child, or someone prepared
to think like one. (“Sure, I wrecked the house this morning, but I’ve been
super good since lunch, so I deserve ice cream!”)
Furthermore, Obama apologists squirm like hooked fish
when you ask them what kind of jobs are being created. The short answer is:
Part-time jobs.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
A lot of the jobs lost during these monthly transactions
were full-time; a lot of the jobs created were part-time. Part-time jobs are
growing about three times as fast as full-time jobs. Low-wage jobs are growing
three times as fast as well-compensated occupations.
(*NOD*)
It’s deeply insulting to the American people to tell them
they can’t do any better than this non-recovery, with less obstructive
government-focused leadership in the White House.
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