John Kerry Distorts the Economy's Performance for Political Gain

"Compassionate Conservative" = The Grand Illusion

 

Actually, unless American companies hire over 3 million people in the next few months, GWB will be the only president since Hoover to have a negative net job creation number.

 

You... you brute... I'm wounded... must... slink away...
devastated... CHECKMATE is too kind...

I have yet to see any facts. There is speculation and spin and selective interpretation and distortion, on both sides. To start with, you cannot label future tense assertions as "facts." This is so boring. Later.

Sincerely,
Jill Hennessey
star of "Crossing Jordan" and, sadly, T_J's late-night fantasies

 

T_J, I'm so happy that you like Jimmy Carter. You're coming around.....

 

T_J = LHutz with spellcheck

 

The current administration has not created any jobs. In fact, more people have dropped out of the job market than at any time in the last 50 years, leading to the 5.7% unemployment rate that you are touting. The current administration is running, by the estimates of the GOP, 2.4 million jobs behind.

BTW, you claimed that the economy has created 650,000 jobs in 7 months. What you leave out is that you have to create 100,000 per month just to keep up with new entries into the job market. Using simple math, this means that over the 7 month period you are talking about, the job market is behind by 50,000 jobs. Not as bad as the previous 2.5 years, but negative growth nonetheless. This is also why, despite "adding" a significant number of jobs last month, the unemployment rate edged UP by .1%.

The BBS is expecting YOUR apology for distorting facts in an effort to snow Americans.

You are on the clock.

 

It's all fun and games until somebody disrespects Styx... Really guys, I thought you knew better.

 

From January 2004

Average monthly new jobs projected by Bush admin - 200,000

Average monthly new jobs economy would generate without tax cuts as estimated by Bush admin. - 228,333

Average monthly new jobs promised from tax breaks - 306,000

Number of new jobs Bush promised, June through October - 1,224,000

Number of new jobs Bush actually produced, June through October - 229,000

Shortfall below projection - 995,000

Number of jobs lost to date since Bush took office - 2.44 million

Bush admin. projection of new jobs created by end of 2004 - 2.0 million

Bush admin. projection of net new jobs created by end of 2004 - 430,000 jobs lost

Last president to lose jobs during entire first term - Herbert Hoover

US Manufacturing jobs lost since Bush took office, 2 years, 10 months - 2.59 million

Budget surplus 2001, when Bush took office + $127 Billion

Bush estimate of Budget deficit FY 2003 - $401 billion

Average annual tax cut Bush promised to Americans - $1000

Average tax cut actually received by 65 million Americans - $19

Average tax cut actually received by top 1% - $28,414

Dollars short of Bush promise in his Leave No Child Behind act - $9.4 billion short

Amount federal spending on public schools, two years - $59 billion

Amount federal spending for Iraq, Afghanistan two years - $166 billion

Decrease, medium household income, last two years - $1,439

Annual minimum wage earnings for full time worker - $10,712

Vice President Dick Cheney annual salary from government - $192,600

2001 Halliburton payments to Vice President Cheney (yearly) - $205,298

Value of no bid contracts awarded to Halliburton in Iraq - $948 million

Sources:

i New York Times, Edmund Andrews. “Treasury Chief Sees a Job Boom, But Most Don’t.” (October, 21 2003)
ii Council of Economic Advisors projection (2/2003)—explained at,
http://www.jobwatch.org/creating/bkg/grading_jobs_and_growth_plan.pdf
iii Council of Economic Advisors projection (2/2003)—explained at,
http://www.jobwatch.org/creating/bkg/grading_jobs_and_growth_plan.pdf
iv Job Watch, www.jobwatch.org. Derived from Council on Economic Advisors projections
v Job Watch, www.jobwatch.org.
vi Bureau of Labor Statistics, numbers in thousands: Change in seasonally adjusted non farm employment level: 132388
(Jan. ’01) – 12994(Oct. ’03) = -2.44 million jobs lost. http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
vii New York Times: Edmund Andrews. “Treasury Chief Sees a Job Boom, But Most Don’t.” (October, 21 2003)
viii New York Times, David Leonhardt. “Bush Record on Jobs: Risking Unhappy Comparisons.” July 3, 2003, citing
information compiled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
ix Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov/data/home.htm
x Determined by adding Treasury Secretary Snow’s projected job growth (2 million) to the 2.44 million jobs already lost
during the administration.
xi Bureau of Labor Statistics, 19.5 million manufacturing jobs in 1979 – 17.1 million 2000= 2.4 million. http://www.bls.gov
xii Bureau of Labor Statistics: 16.993 million (manufacturing jobs in January 2001) -14.398 (manufacturing jobs in October
2003) = 2.59 million lost since Bush took office. http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cesbtab1.htm
xiii Congressional Budget Office, http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0#table11
xiv Congressional Budget Office, http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1944&sequence=0
xv State of the Union address 2003, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030128-19.html
xvi Citizens for Tax Justice http://www.ctj.org/pdf/2003statecut.pdf
xvii Citizens for Tax Justice-- http://www.ctj.org/pdf/sen0522.pdf
xviii NEA-- http://www.nea.org/esea/eseafunding.html
xix Budget of the US Government http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2003/hist.html
xx Washington Post—Chris Van Hollen, “Paying the Postwar Tab With Plastic.” (October 27, 2003). 87 billion requested
plus 79 billion already spend = 166 billion dollars.
xxi U.S. Census Bureau-Median household income has dropped 3.3% over the past two years. This decline represents a loss
of $1,439 over the past two years. http://www.census.gov, also available at
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_income
xxii EPI-- http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefaq
xxiii Office of Personnel Management, www.opm.gov
xxiv Office of Government Ethics, Cheney’s financial disclosure filings
xxv New York Daily News, Kenneth R. Bazinet. “Halliburton Contracts in Iraq my Trigger Congressional Probe.”
(September 19, 2003.)

 

is this much different than the admin trying to classify burger flippers as manufacturing jobs?

 

MCMark....how dare you infuse facts into a D&D thread! Shame!!!!

 

*unless that stick is made of pepperoni

 

1st, pretty funny that you are extolling the greatness of an index invented my Jimmy Carter

2nd, the misery index really doesn't tell us squat as it is esstentially at the same level as it was when Bush took office and I doubt anyone will say that our economy is the same today as it was in Jan 2001.

"The most recent statistics, for February, put the misery index at 7.3 percent, a combination of 1.7 percent inflation and 5.6 percent unemployment. The rate was down to about 6.7 percent in January 2000, and was at 7.9 percent when Bush took office in January 2001. Through the rest of that year it fluctuated, dropping as low as 7.2 percent."

3rd...Take the spin away and what index says is exactly what Kerry says it is, that it "puts together the kitchen table economic issues that determine whether working families are feeling economic anxiety or economic optimism"

Those are median family income, college tuition, health costs, gasoline cost, bankruptcies, home ownership rate, and private-sector job growth.

So T_J, are you saying that each of these things should just be ignored? Don't you think that each American family is affected by each of these?

Just from 2002 to 2003:

Wages are down 0.2 percent
College tuition is up 13 percent – the largest increase on record
Health premiums are up 11 percent – the largest increase since 1977
Gasoline prices are up 15 percent – the second largest increase since 1980

These price level increases hit each American family in the pocketbook right now!

 

Scooby Doo Can doo-doo, but Jimmy Carter is smarter.