Martin O'Malley: "Yes We Can Blame the GOP for Unemployment" More jobs were created in the private sector alone then in all 8 years under George W. Bush

[HeluCopter29]

"Because more jobs were created in the private sector last year alone than in all eight years of George W. Bush. Look, we did not get into the economic problems we did because President Obama was in office for two months. The ground was laid by the bad policies of George W. Bush, and that came at the expense of the growing middle class and giving huge tax breaks to the billionaires.”

Read more at: http://www.classwarfareexists.com/more-jobs-were-created-in-the-private-sector-last-year-alone-than-in-all-eight-years-of-george-w-bush/#axzz25MlSJoCl

Essentially this goes right along with the stock market being at record highs. Yet, the economy is not rebounding and public sector jobs are lower then where they were under Bush. So GOP, where are all those jobs you promised us?

[Heisenberg]

Just my opinion, but I think it's becoming detrimental for Dems to place blame on GWB at this point. Even if they are making good points, I think a lot of people are getting tired of GWB being blamed for everything 4 years later.

[Stadium-Armory]

I think O'Malley's comment is about drawing a policy distinction, and not about blaming Bush per se. Granted, he's using Bush's record as a tool in his argument, but the point is not about Bush - its about a choice between two differing fiscal perspectives.

[twa]

Don't you mean Texas and the GOP governors did?

Take your blame and wash out your eyes

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/332147.php

What Obama likes to do is count jobs "created" from the deepest depth of the recession. But that's not how we count recovery from a recession -- we say we've recovered when we've recovered up to the previous high point.

As the collapse was still occurring when Obama took office, there was still further to fall, so Obama likes to pretend that any jobs above the lowest-of-the-low are jobs he "created."

At this point in time, Obama still hasn't "created" a single net new job. His job figures remain negative, except when you play games as far as your start period for counting them.

Both Bush and Reagan added new jobs on top of the previous high-water mark for employment. Reagan's expansion was fueled by millions and millions of such jobs.

Obama has yet to even get back to zero.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Oh no twa, if the President is to blame for the economy then he's to blame for creating more jobs than Bush.

You don't get to cast all blame on him and not give him all the credit.

To blame him for the bad and to not praise for he good is just plain ol' hackery....but then I expect nothing less.

[NoCalMike]

No one, including Obama has said we have "recovered" what he is saying is that things have turned around and the signs are there they could continue to turn around, and that it would be foolish to return to the same or similar economic policies that had us heading off the cliff in the first place.

Obama made a bungle when he said "the private sector is fine" because it was boneheaded to say it when the economy overall is still in poor shape, however if you look at the statistics and read between the lines of what he was trying to explain, it's that the private sector is beginning to recover, however due to all the cuts he has compromised on it has cost a ton of public sector jobs, which at any other times the republicans shouldn't even be mad about, they should be hailing it as trimming gov't, however that won't happen in an election year. All the public sector jobs that have been done away with will be used to support the unemployment rate.

[zoony]

The economy has recovered. What is lagging is housing. That accounts for the unemployment remaining

[mikered30]

So the summer of recovery happened and I didn't know it?

[chipwhich]

The economy has recovered. What is lagging is housing. That accounts for the unemployment remaining

Housing isn't coming back for a LONG time. Expect another bubble when interest rates rise.

[JMS]

Just my opinion, but I think it's becoming detrimental for Dems to place blame on GWB at this point. Even if they are making good points, I think a lot of people are getting tired of GWB being blamed for everything 4 years later.

Republicans were saying that a week after he left office.... I'm going to remember GW and the way guys like Paul Ryan let him run up a trillion dollar deficit for decades.

You might have had a point if Romney's fiscal policy wasn't the exact same one GW used.

[twa]

Oh no twa, if the President is to blame for the economy then he's to blame for creating more jobs than Bush.

.

Oh he is taking the blame now?

using the same metrics used by the OP he STILL created less than W

http://www.aei-ideas.org/2012/08/wait-both-the-reagan-and-bush-recoveries-were-better-than-obamas/

Cutter counts the job gains from the low point of Obama’s term forward. The low point was February 2010 when U.S. nonfarm payrolls measured 129,244,00. In July, they measured 133,245,000 for a gain of 4.0 million jobs in 27 months

If you measure the Reagan recovery the same way, he created 8.0 million new jobs in 27 months.

And if you measure the Bush recovery the same way, the low point was in August 2003 when U.S. employment stood at 129,820,00. But 27 months later, the figure was 134,654,000 in November 2005 — a gain of 4.8 million jobs.

speaking of hacks....how many jobs did his state create?

[Larry]

Don't you mean Texas and the GOP governors did?

Take your blame and wash out your eyes

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/332147.php

What Obama likes to do is count jobs "created" from the deepest depth of the recession. But that's not how we count recovery from a recession -- we say we've recovered when we've recovered up to the previous high point.

As the collapse was still occurring when Obama took office, there was still further to fall, so Obama likes to pretend that any jobs above the lowest-of-the-low are jobs he "created."

At this point in time, Obama still hasn't "created" a single net new job. His job figures remain negative, except when you play games as far as your start period for counting them.

Both Bush and Reagan added new jobs on top of the previous high-water mark for employment. Reagan's expansion was fueled by millions and millions of such jobs.

Obama has yet to even get back to zero.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/TheBestHeCanDoBlessHisHeart.jpg

But, if you just look at Texas, ignore the fact that the trend in Texas has been going on for decades, and is not in any way associated with the political alignment of it's governors, selectively go through the statistics, pretend that every good statistic goes to the nearest available Republican, and every bad statistic must be someone else's doing, . . . .

AND then if you change the definitions of words like "gains", "improvement", and "better", . . .

AND if you decide that the word zero means "the highest point that was ever achieved". (Coincidentally also assigning the blame for any losses that occurred before he even took office, to him) . . .

If you assign all of the gains that occurred under W, to W. But you assign all of the losses that occurred under W, to Obama.

And then have the arrogance to piously announce that anybody who doesn't do that is "playing games as your start period"

Well, then, you just might be a Republican spinmeister.

[AsburySkinsFan]

.....what Larry said........

[HeluCopter29]

Don't you mean Texas and the GOP governors did?

Take your blame and wash out your eyes

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/332147.php

What Obama likes to do is count jobs "created" from the deepest depth of the recession. But that's not how we count recovery from a recession -- we say we've recovered when we've recovered up to the previous high point.

As the collapse was still occurring when Obama took office, there was still further to fall, so Obama likes to pretend that any jobs above the lowest-of-the-low are jobs he "created."

At this point in time, Obama still hasn't "created" a single net new job. His job figures remain negative, except when you play games as far as your start period for counting them.

Both Bush and Reagan added new jobs on top of the previous high-water mark for employment. Reagan's expansion was fueled by millions and millions of such jobs.

Obama has yet to even get back to zero.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/TheBestHeCanDoBlessHisHeart.jpg

His start period was when he took office.

Unless you wanna do one of those things that Republicans do and make everything that happened starting in say, 2006, be what he did.

[Ignatius J.]

At this point in time, Obama still hasn't "created" a single net new job. His job figures remain negative, except when you play games as far as your start period for counting them.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/TheBestHeCanDoBlessHisHeart.jpg

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-private-sector-and-the-public-sector-under-obama-2012-6?op=1

However, the private sector has been adding jobs steadily since the end of Obama's first year, and today there are more private sector jobs than there were before Obama took office.

Bush can't say the same for his policies, so I see no reason to go back to them. If you're arguing that we should consider raising taxes to increase employment in the public sector, you might have a solid point, but I don't think that's what you're trying to say.

[Riggo-toni]

Bottom line(s):

W bankrupted the country. His economic policies were disastrous, and any President following him would face enormous hurdles. Obama's solution, however, was to spend even more, and didn't even target key areas like infrastructure (yes, I know he proposed those sorts of expenditures in his most recent un-passable political prop stimulus pkg). Instead, he dished out $$$ to Dem pet causes and constituents.

Up until recent months, he did far too little too late to alleviate the burden of the housing crisis (Zoony on target as always in this thread). Without addressing the biggest drag on the economy, there's no way he was going to make an impact, no matter how many times he shouted out "Yes, we can!" Unfortunately GOP snake oil solutions aren't much better at this point.

Although I detest class warfare and generally oppose the whole "middle class tax cuts" hoopla as the populist garbage it usually is, at this point in time one of the biggest drags on the economy is households deleveraging - paying off debts. The gov't wasting more money is not going to stimulate the economy. Reducing top income rates won't help much either in this case (though I'd be for it if there were a revenue enhancing elimination of deductions).

[Larry]

Here's a simple exercise.

(I'll have to provide directions for how to get to the data, since I don't think the page can be bookmarked.)

• Go to the BLS page for employment data.
  
• Click on "Employment, Hours, and Earnings - National", "Multi-Screen Data Search"
  
• "Seasonally Adjusted", "Next Form"
  
• "Total Private", "Next Form"
  
• All Employees, Thousands", "Next Form"
  
• "Total Private", "Next Form"
  
• "Retrieve Data"

This will take you to a page of data. By default, the data goes back 10 years, which means that it doesn't show what the numbers were when W took office. But, up at the top of the page, there are places where you can select when you want the data to start. I chose to tell it to start in 1999. But all I'm really going to look at is the data for 2001, on.

I'm now going to look at the data for Feb, 2001, and Feb, 2009.

Note that by doing this, I'm pretending that the instant a President takes the oath of office, that he instantly becomes fully in control of, and fully responsible for, the entire US Economy. That his power is unlimited, and instant. (In fact, I'm assuming that when he takes the oath of office, that the President becomes retroactively responsible for everything that happened in the month of February.)

I would assert that, in reality, it would be more fair to assume that, after a President takes office, that there follows a period in which the economy is still responding to his predecessor. That the actual date in which you say that "Anything before this date is W's, and anything after it is Obama's", is some time

after

Obama took office. And we could no doubt argue as to how long after Obama took office, this date occurs.

I will also point out that if certain posters persist in their years-long efforts to put the date at which "everything after this is Obama's", at six months

before

he took office, then I will point out, again, that they're lying.

In Feb, 2001 (The month W took office), private sector employment was 111,623,000

In Feb, 2009 (The month W left office), private sector employment was 110,260,000

(Net change: A loss of 1,363,000 jobs)

In Feb, 2009 (The month O took office), private sector employment was 110,260,000

In May, 2012 (The most recent month for which we have actual data, rather than projections), private sector employment was 111,072,000

(Net change: A gain of 812,000 jobs.)

I will observe that, if you assume that the "Presidential grace period", the time between when a President takes office, and when the economy officially becomes "his", as opposed to his predecessor, is six months, then the "score" becomes:

W: loss of 3,131,000 jobs

O: gain of 3,654,000 jobs

In short, the

only

way to even imply that Obama hasn't been

massively

better (on the scale of "total number of private-sector jobs) than W, is to pretend that, when Obama took office, he

retroactively

become responsible for all of the jobs lost during his predecessor's watch.

[twa]

numbers are fun, how is the GOP to blame if the GOP is creating jobs?

http://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/on-numbers/scott-thomas/2012/03/texas-north-dakota-are-rare-states.html

Texas and North Dakota are rarities. They're among only four states (and the District of Columbia) that managed to recover all private-sector jobs that were lost during the recession -- and actually add new ones. Louisiana and Alaska are the others.

Forty-six states are still in the hole. The worst in raw terms is California, which had 855,200 fewer private-sector jobs in January 2012 than in January 2008. Nevada is dead last on the percentage list, down 12.7 percent in four years.

http://factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-economic-sleight-of-hand/

Aside from the Census spike, Obama’s best month was January of this year, with a 275,000 job gain. That didn’t equal Bush’s best month, and it’s been downhill since then.

Our point here is that Obama’s jobs record can be made to look better or worse, depending on what’s being counted, and when.

speaking of which

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/americas-transition-part-time-worker-society-accelerates-part-time-jobs-hit-record

Back in December 2010 Zero Hedge was the first to point out what is easily the most troubling characteristic within America's evaporating labor force: its gradual transition to a part-time worker society. We elaborated on this back in February when we noted that the quality assessment of US jobs indicates that this most disturbing trend is accelerating. Finally, yesterday, the BLS' latest jobs report confirmed that our concerns have been valid all along: as of May, part-time jobs just as disclosed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics hit an all time high, over 28 million!

[Hersh]

Instead, he dished out $$$ to Dem pet causes and constituents.

Do you have any idea what was actually in the Stimulus package? Please let me know what it contained.

[Larry]

numbers are fun, how is the GOP to blame if the GOP is creating jobs?

Look! It's twa, trying once again to pull the "well, if you just allow me to go through the data, and assign responsibility to whoever will help my political agenda the most, then you can join me in la-la land, too" game.

Our point here is that Obama’s jobs record can be made to look better or worse, depending on what’s being counted, and when.

Back in December 2010 Zero Hedge was the first to point out what is easily the most troubling characteristic within America's evaporating labor force: its gradual transition to a part-time worker society. We elaborated on this back in February when we noted that the quality assessment of US jobs indicates that this most disturbing trend is accelerating. Finally, yesterday, the BLS' latest jobs report confirmed that our concerns have been valid all along: as of May, part-time jobs just as disclosed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics hit an all time high, over 28 million!

I don't know which is more contemptible.

The guy who was just in this thread trying to get us to pretend that, to measure Obama's (and W's) record on jobs, we absolutely must go through W's record, pick the best number he ever achieved, and pretend that everything after that was Obama's, trying to claim that "let's compare total jobs, from the day they took office, till the day they left" is somehow cherry picking.

Or the guy who constantly tries to point at Rick Perry, and Texas, as the Republican vision of Utopia, trying to argue that low-wage jobs shouldn't count as jobs.

[RedskinsFan44]

Do you have any idea what was actually in the Stimulus package? Please let me know what it contained.

Substantial chunk of it was tax cuts. But when Dems cut taxes, it's spending.

[twa]

I used the method they used as well

Funny that the OP doesn't blame the Blue states for their drag on employment,while ignoring the contributions of the Red

[Larry]

I used the method they used as well

Kind of hard to tell, since I can't tell which "the method they used as well" you're referring to.

Funny that the OP doesn't blame the Blue states for their drag on employment,while ignoring the contributions of the Red

Translation: Funny that the OP looks at the entire nation, and doesn't go through the country, cherry picking data here and there, and then dividing that data up according to maximum political partisanship.

[twa]

Wow you are right Larry....it just blames the GOP w/o data

[mbws]

Just my opinion, but I think it's becoming detrimental for Dems to place blame on GWB at this point. Even if they are making good points, I think a lot of people are getting tired of GWB being blamed for everything 4 years later.

Yeah. That's like saying Shanahan and Allen are not very good at their jobs, because of having to dig out from under and correct the policies of Cerrato and Dan.