Posted on 07/07/2012 6:14:31 AM PDT by no dems
Obama needed a filet mignon in the June employment report. But instead he got a rubber chicken.
Only 80,000 new jobs were created last month, way below Wall Street expectations. It’s the fourth consecutive monthly disappointment. For a few months last winter, jobs were rising at an average of 225,000 a month. But that has sloped way down to only 75,000. The unemployment rate continues at 8.2 percent, which is the forty-first straight month above 8 percent. The U6 unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers, is just under 15 percent.
As voters finalize their election impressions this summer, all of this is bad news for the Chicago incumbent.
In a campaign stop in Ohio on Friday, Obama actually said we’re still “heading in the right direction.” Is he kidding? As a stagnant GDP drops below 2 percent, employment falters, retail sales decline, and the ISM index for manufacturing drops below 50 (signaling contraction)? No objective observer can deny that the economy is headed in the wrong direction.
I don’t like playing the pessimist, but the numbers are the numbers. This is exactly what former Clinton advisers James Carville, Doug Schoen, and Stanley Greenberg have been warning Obama about. People just don’t believe the economy is getting better. So he’s gotta change his message.
But what change? Taxing rich people won’t create jobs. Neither will bashing Bain Capital. Obama is surrounded by leftist campaign advisers. And it’s hard to see them shifting gears to something constructive like making a summer deal to extend the Bush tax cuts for a year, or heaven forbid backing off the 20-some-odd tax hikes embodied in Obamacare.
In other words, Obama’s goose may already be cooked.
The Joint Economic Committee (JEC), spearheaded by Texas congressman Kevin Brady, put out a report saying that the Obama recovery now ranks dead last in modern times. That’s a real milestone in the post-WWII era. It’s ten out of ten for both jobs and economic growth. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, real GDP has expanded only 6.7 percent over the eleven-quarter recovery since the recession ended. The Reagan recovery at the same stage had increased by 17.6 percent. The Clinton recovery by 8.7 percent.
As for jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the number of private-sector jobs has grown by only 4.1 percent since the cyclical low point. Reagan’s record was 10.7 percent.
So much for Obamanomics. Didn’t work. Still isn’t working. As the JEC put it, spending stimulus, housing bailouts, auto bailouts, financial bailouts, cash for clunkers, cash for caulkers, and $5 trillion in deficit spending left the Obama recovery dead last in modern times.
Whatever happened to the great boom of the ’80s and ’90s, when the animal spirits were strong and the American economy wasn’t held hostage by Europe or China? In an odd twist, both Obama and his top economist Alan Krueger blame “problems built up over decades.” Does that mean they blame Clinton? Reagan?
For nearly 25 years -- during those bad old decades -- the economy increased 3.3 percent annually. Unemployment dropped from 11 percent to 6 percent to 5 percent to below 4 percent. Obama would swoon for numbers like that. But those statistics come from the era when big government was over, when pro-market forces stopped the expansion of Leviathan, and when marginal tax rates were slashed to grow the economy.
Now the question is, with Obama’s economic goose cooked, does Mitt Romney have what it takes to win the election and provide a pro-growth economic model that will restore prosperity at home and America’s number-one position around the world?
Some powerful figures -- including Rupert Murdoch, Jack Welch, and even my brothers and sisters at the Wall Street Journal editorial page -- have taken shots at Romney in recent days. But I am more optimistic. In response to his critics on the day of the bad June jobs report, Romney talked about expanding energy resources, approving the Keystone pipeline, cutting taxes, and increasing trade with Latin America. He reaffirmed his intention to cut federal spending and eliminate programs.
Basically, Romney is promising a return to free-market, supply-side policies on taxes, trade, regulation, and spending. Hopefully he will embrace a sound and stable dollar as well. I still believe Romney is the most underrated politician in America today, and that he’s the most conservative Republican standard bearer since Ronald Reagan.
OK, all you Romney haters, go ahead. Spew your venom... tell me what a RINO I am for posting something “good” about Romney.... Tell me how you hope my mama’s dies from AIDS...... Go ahead; do your thing.
Have come home...........
To ROOST!
OK, all you Romney haters, go ahead. Spew your venom...
This country is 20% liberal and 40% conservative and 40% unorganized. So why has there never been a conservative candidate for the 40%?
3.5 years in
the Baraqqi Depression grinds on
Because 10% say their guy is more conservative, 10% say their guy is more conservative, 10% say their guy is more conservative, and 10% say their guy is more conservative.
Was it actually factually really real?
The guy is doing drugs, seriously. Either that or he’s totally gone off the rails.
Unemployment 8.2%??
Are all of those people on permanent disability counted?
What would that do to the numbers?
Whereas it might be hard to put an exact number on those who have chosen to drop out of the job market, the permanent disability number is a hard number.
The country continues to atrophy until DC starts to.....
Not going to trash you,Explain the Promotion of Madden In Romneys CampaIgn,You Know Chief Sarah Palin Destroyer in the 2008 Campaign.
Why does Romney NOT understand this is an Ideological Campaign? Why is it that Rinos are Loath to Wave the Flag and point out that his opponent has done nothing but trash traditional American Values for his entire Term,and that includes his wife. Obama is going to sign on to the UN gun Ban Treaty on July 27th,decimating our second ammendment rights,Is Romney going to mention that or say unemployment is still 8.2percent? Do seniors who are now on Medicare know that their Medicare deduction from thier social security checks is going to Increase from 96. dollars a Month to 248. dollars a Month in 2014 because of obamacare? do you think they would like to Know that? I would think seniors might want to know that but I guess Romney does not think they do.
Never mind.
It is obvious that it is better to have for president a Muslim who is doing all he can to promote Islam, thereby bringing about the Caliphate than it is to elect a Mormon.
“So why has there never been a conservative candidate for the 40%?”
His name was Ronald Reagan....and the DC RInoCracy will never let his like inside the BeltWay again!!!
Put their nasty agenda back about 20years...between him and Gingrich in the 90’s.
Obama could be marching his zombie supporters to the grave and they would be cheering O-bam-a, O-bam-a...
Was George H. W. a Reagan Conservative?
Was Robert Dole a Reagan Conservative?
Was George W. a Reagan Conservative?
Was John McCain a Reagon Conservative?
Well there you are folks, I don't think one has to be very far Right to be Right of all of the Republican "standard bearers since Ronald Reagan.
Define “conservative”. No way on God’s green earth 40% of the US population is for limiting government to the point of fiscal sanity. There are millions of “conservatives” that fight over public funds subsidizing their livelihoods and “charities” of choice.
When obama starts getting nervous, things such as riots, Reichstag fires,and other "crisises" will begin to happen. Congress has already given him toe authority to arrest and detain indefinitely without trial anyone he pleases. All he has to do is declare an area a war or battle zone and those whom it pleases him to be "enemy combatants".
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