Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the Gods' gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears dishonor more than death.
Horace
Wasserman Schultz and Phony Job Numbers
What is it about annoying Democratic Congresspeople from Florida? Even though Alan Grayson was voted out of office in the mid-terms, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who is shrill, loud, ultra-partisan, and rude (constantly interrupting and talking over other people), on Face the Nation today was once again trying to put lipstick on a pig by arguing that Obama did more to create new jobs last year than Bush did over 8 years in office.
Now let's deal with reality; unemployment quickly jumped to 8% and remains at 9.7% (percentages never reached during the Bush Presidency: average--5.2%) during nearly 2 years of Obama in office, some 19 months after economists declared the recession officially over.. This is not the first time Wasserman has attempted to argue this point misleadingly, and it was decisively refuted by Veronique de Rugy and others using BLS numbers. Whereas it is true aggregate job numbers were weak under Bush's 8 years, he walked into a recession after the stock market bubble burst, compounded by the 9/11 attacks and corporate scandals: a loss of roughly 3.4 million jobs. From the beginning of the recession in December 2007 (following the real estate market bubble burst) to Obama's stimulus package, some 4.6 million jobs were lost. Bush ended up with a net gain of just over 1 million jobs, most of that in the government sector (almost all at the local/state level). However, Obama has already achieved about 80% of the number of federal employees added under Bush in 8 years (not counting temporary Census jobs).
Following the 2003 Bush tax cuts, jobs grew for almost 52 straight months (although relatively shallow growth), with the private sector adding about 7.3 million jobs. However, the bookended recessions shrank overall private sector numbers by 673,000 jobs. At the time that de Rugy wrote her article in October, private sector job losses under the Obama Administration shrank an additional 2.9 million jobs--FOUR TIMES the net amount over Bush's 8 years. Furthermore, state/local government jobs under chronic budget cuts shrank another 357,000 jobs under Obama's 2 years.
Now let's look at a few other points: keep in mind numbers would probably have been much worse except for the fact that Obama inherited Bush's tax cuts, which mitigated numbers which would have been worse. But during the first 18 months of the 2003 tax cut stimulus, the private sector added roughly 2 million jobs. In the 18 month following the Obama stimulus, the private sector numbers went down by 2.5 million. The idea of a stimulus is to spark economic growth.
Furthermore, we have to remember that during 2001-2002 (after Jeffords jumped party caucuses), the Democrats controlled the Senate, and the Democrats had full control during the last 2 years of the Bush Presidency. So the fact is, during the times of the Bush Administration that the economy was bleeding jobs, the Democrats controlled one or both houses of Congress.
Although there is coincidental data showing better economic numbers during Democratic Presidencies, it has more to do with business cycles than policies (Democrats typically pass anti-growth policies, which means that the economy grew less than it should have grown). But it seems disingenuous to credit Obama's policies, e.g., the stimulus. The fact is, as I've argued in a prior post, that many macroeconomic effects of policies, like Obama's stimulus, take up to 6 months or longer to be felt. Economists agree the economy bottomed out at June 2009, just 4 months after the stimulus, and only a small percentage of funds were released during that time period, almost negligible in a $14.6T economy.
What can a Republican House do? The BEST THING the House can do is DO NOTHING, in terms of adding to business costs through progressive regulatory empire building, taxes, fees, etc: no more climate change legislation which (as Spain has shown) is a job-loser, not winner. This gives business owners more clarity into their business forecasting. The second thing they can do is SPENDING REFORM, since massive federal deficits choke off the supply of capital into the national economy. The third thing they should be is to STOP THE MADNESS OF UNFUNDED LIABILITIES. Even today Wasserman Schultz and her fellow Democrats are in a state of denial that social security needs fixing, never mind the fact that jobless 62-year-olds or older have elected to file for early retirement because of a bad economy.
Personally, I believe that President Obama and the 111th Congress should be sued for negligence for spending most of those 2 terms in politically opportunistic policy making, versus making the economy job #1. We still have among the highest business tax brackets in the developed world, and we had the government preoccupied by executive salaries in the private sector, imposing unilateral restrictions affecting innovation and expansion in the financial services industry, meddling with private sector companies like AIG, GM, Chrysler, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and making deals with pharmaceuticals and health insurance companies.
We've Heard It All Before, President Obama: Talk Is Cheap
I'm willing to work with anyone of either party who's got a good idea and the commitment to see it through. And we should all expect you to hold us accountable for our progress or our failure to deliver.Does it seem to you that you've heard Obama talk about anyone having a "good idea"? Remember after the 2008 election he said he was open to every good idea to stop job losses? (But that was before one of his first messages to Republicans that "elections have consequences"...) To stimulate the economy? Again, more than a year after his inauguration, in announcing his hiring tax credit gimmick, Obama repeated, "I'm open to any good ideas from Democrats or Republicans." Early last year, Obama reminded people that he was open to good ideas for healthcare reform (this was AFTER both the House and Senate Democrats, with overwhelming vote advantages, crammed partisan bills down the Republicans' throats). Late last spring, he was open to good ideas on oil and energy policy. There's even a tongue-in-cheek Facebook group: "Obama, we're still waiting for those good ideas"...
In fact, we know exactly what Obama's trying to do. First of all, if Obama wanted true compromise, he wouldn't have waited until time was running out last month on extending Bush tax cuts to make his first real attempt to compromise. Obama didn't win election to pass intellectually superior conservative reform legislation; he had massive majorities in both houses of Congress prepared to pass almost anything he wanted--he himself said that 'elections have consequences'. He had the opportunity to triangulate health care reform after Scott Brown (R-MA) won filibuster-sustaining seat #41. Instead, he pressed the House Democrats to pass the corrupt Senate bill "as is" while subsequently abusing the budget reconciliation process (not subject to filibuster) to do reconciliation fixes between the houses. This is all political posturing and spin, to claim to the American people he is "open-minded", but it's as phony as a $3 bill. Dozens, if not hundreds of times over the past 2 years, Republican ideas were sniped by purely partisan votes.
Second, Obama is trying to marginalize and co-opt Republican positions. We saw this as Obama opened up only token exploration areas for offshore drilling and then used the BP oil spill incident to (of course) justify a 7 -year moratorium. To those of us whom know the supply/demand issue and the growing personal transportation markets in China and India, both net oil importing nations), this is nothing short of playing Russian roulette with our national economy. Already oil is approaching $100/barrel AGAIN--at 9.7% unemployment, we can't afford a replication of the 2008 picture where gas rounded $4/gallon and started its march towards $5/gallon. I can almost hear Sarah Palin reprinting "drill, baby, drill" bumper stickers for next year's Presidential campaign. We saw the same sort of watered-down nonsense in dealing with medical malpractice reform. Do you really think he's going to sell out against his union, environmentalist, and trial lawyer special interests? They squealed like a stuck pig because they were ultimately unsuccessful over NOT RAISING the taxes of higher-income people--this had nothing to do with the deficit. The President more than doubled the spending offsets to the revenue "lost" by increasing the tax burden on a few wealthy parties. That was all about ideology, not the federal budget deficit.
He may call for bipartisanship, but if he was really interested in bipartisanship, he would have done more than a few token half-day meetings with Republicans over the past 2 years. Obama loves to campaign far more than being a good President. And he doesn't know how to campaign without demonizing the opposition. It doesn't matter what the House Republicans do or say: the Bush-bashing isn't working anymore, he's got to run for reelection next year, and he's not going to get there by saying Republicans were great working partners deserving as much credit as he's going to claim over any economic improvements. He's going to continue to bash the Republicans, making it look like they want to balance the federal budget on the backs of low-income people (whom, of course, don't pay income taxes...)
Political Humor
A few originals:
- Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez made nice with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the recent inauguration of Brazil's first female President. It turns out they have a lot in common; Chavez once called George W. Bush the devil at the UN; Clinton did much the same on the 2008 campaign trail.
- It turns out that the Obama's have an annual family talent show during the holidays. Barack Obama fancies himself as a singer. Rumor has it that Obama, following the 63-seat turnover in the House during the mid-terms, this year decided to sing Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive". We do have our first batch of reviews: former American Idol judge Simon Cowell said that he didn't mean to be rude, but Obama's performance was pitchy, dreadful and a mess, just like his domestic policies; Donald Trump wants him fired from Presidential Apprentice, and Sarah Palin thought Obama should give up his day job.
Henry Gross, "Shannon". (Written over the loss of a Beach Boy's Irish setter.)
