How Many Jobs Have Been Saved Or Created?
Jan 24, 2010 Political
It all depends on who you ask:
Axelrod, on CNN’s State of the Union: “But understand that, in this recession that began at the beginning of 2007, we’ve lost 7 million jobs. Now, the Recovery Act the president passed has created more than — or saved more than 2 million jobs. But against 7 million, you know, that — that is — it is cold comfort to those who still are looking.”
Jarrett, on NBC’s Meet the Press: “The Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs. There are schoolteachers and firemen and— and— teachers all across our country, policemen, who have jobs today because of that recovery act. We’re investing in infrastructure. We’re investing in public education so that our kids can compete going forth into the next— generation.”
Gibbs, on “Fox News Sunday”: “Well, Chris, let’s take for instance the example you just used of the stimulus package. We had four quarters of economic regression in terms of growth, right? Just last quarter, we finally saw the first positive economic job growth in more than a year. Largely as a result of the recovery plan that’s put money back into our economy, that saved or created 1.5 million jobs.” Politico
It would seem that Obama’s people don’t actually know how many jobs have been created and the idea that saved jobs can be measured is bogus. The administration dreamed up this category to tout success that can’t possibly be measured. The guidelines used to indicate a “saved” job are nonsensical and were dreamed up to give the appearance of success.
Jobs are counted as saved if stimulus money went to them even if they were not in danger of being lost. The formula originally used allowed for more jobs saved than actually existed in the companies. If any stimulus money is spent on a job (like giving a pay raise) then it is considered saved. It is a sham.
Now the administration spin masters are out talking up the numbers in an effort to show some kind of success even though the stimulus has been a dismal failure.
I would think that if they were all going to go on different networks to discuss this they could all coordinate their lies.
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Obama Will Finish What Osama Started
Feb 15, 2009 Political
Osama bin Laden is not a stupid man and his plan to attack America was brilliant from a tactical standpoint. He could never hope to beat this country in a head to head fight so he used airliners to kill nearly 3000 of our countrymen. He became emboldened when Bill Clinton withdrew from Somalia after the Blackhawk Down incident. Osama believed that America was a paper tiger. He never expected the response that we gave him.
He attacked us on 9/11 but that was the opening salvo in a protracted war. Bin Laden’s real goal is to bankrupt America. His belief is that he engaged the Soviets in Afghanistan for 10 years and they went broke fighting. He believes that he can do the same thing to America. The big difference is that the major part of his plan will not play out on the battlefield. No, bin Laden banked on us spending a fortune to keep our country safe and he was right. We have not been attacked since 9/11 but we have spent a fortune keeping safe. Many times when we needed to spend money 9/11 played into the thinking and the amount of debt we incurred was great.
Bin Laden was banking on us spending and spending while he sat back and watched us go bankrupt. Despite tax cuts and increased revenues we continued to spend more than we took in. The deficit rose and, as Pastor Wright would say, our financial chickens came home to roost. Years of policies like the Community Reinvestment Act came back to bite us in our hind parts.
As a result we have been in a recession, not the worst of all time and not the worst since the Great Depression despite what the Sainted One has said. He and his minions have their talking points and part of their job is to scare people into submission. Terence P. Jeffrey at the Washington Times has a great piece describing this rhetoric. He lays out the numbers which refute the claims made by those hell bent on our economic collapse.
Claims Mr. Obama, “We have inherited an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression.”
But the historical figures for the gross domestic product (GDP), calculated by the U.S. Bureau Economic Analysis, say something else. After growing by 0.9 percent and 2.8 percent in the first two quarters of 2008, GDP declined by 0.5 percent and 3.5 percent in the third and fourth quarters of the year. Is that “an economic crisis as deep and as dire as any since the Great Depression”?
Well, 1949 was far worse. GDP declined by 5.8 percent in the first quarter of that year and 1.2 percent in the second. It rebounded by 4.6 percent in the third, but then dropped 4 percent in the fourth. America did not start an irreversible decline that year. In 1950, the economy grew by an amazing 17.4 percent in the first quarter, 12.5 percent in the second, 16.6 percent in the third and 7.5 percent in the fourth.
In 1953-54, there was also a downturn worse than the one Mr. Obama “inherited.” GDP declined by 2.4 percent in the third quarter of 1953, by 6.2 percent in the fourth quarter and by 2 percent in the first quarter of 1954.
The rhetoric about catastrophe is nothing more than the politics of fear that Obama railed against during the campaign. He is ignoring history and sound policy in order to advance an agenda designed to funnel taxpayer money to his special interests. Many have claimed that Obama made a mistake by letting Pelosi and Reid write his plan but I believe his decision was calculated in order to give him plausible deniability. He stayed above the fray while the large number of Democrats in Congress were able to absorb the blow. They are already unpopular so why tarnish the Messiah?
We cannot spend our way out of the problem. Obama and his sock puppets keep saying that the stimulus plan is a spending bill because that is the point. If spending is stimulus then we should not have a problem because George Bush and Congress spent a lot of money. Using Obama’s logic we should have an unemployment rate of 0%. He blames George Bush for doubling the debt and causing the economic collapse (that did not cause it) but then says that the way to solve the problem is to spend more and go deeper into debt. If what Bush did caused it, how is doing more of what Bush did going to fix it?
Obama’s future generation bankruptcy plan will increase inflation and unemployment while doing little to stimulate the economy. During the times discussed by Jeffrey, the country was able to rebound fairly well after each of the past problems and none of them involved spending a TRILLION dollars. Passing a small, targeted stimulus or letting this play out is not in the cards because doing so would deny the Democrats the opportunity to take advantage of this crisis and get what they want. There is no doubt that this is what they did just as Rahm Emanuel said they would.
The unfortunate thing is that Obama and the Democrats are aiding and abetting the enemy. Osama bin Laden said he wanted to bankrupt us and he certainly got us to spend a lot of money.
Barack Obama is hell bent on finishing the job bin Laden started by saddling future generations with monumental debt.
One
Big
Assed
Mistake
America
If Obama takes control of health care he will probably force everyone to take one of these. He will need to in order to get reelected because this plan will bring nothing but bad memories.
Related:
Wall Street Journal (very good at debunking Obama)
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