Republicans Need You to Forget There Was An Election in 2010.
July 9, 2012

 
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Back on TrackOn Friday, I reported that the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the National Employment Figures for June showing an economy that created only 80,000 net new jobs. But the day before that, major payroll accounting firm “ADP” released their monthly Private Sector job figures: 176,000. How did we arrive at two wildly different figures? Did government employers actually shed nearly 100,000 jobs to produce a “net” of just 80,000? Or are someone’s numbers horribly off? And if the numbers really are as bad as they say, who’s to blame?

According to ADP, their private sector job creation numbers are a calculated estimate “derived from an anonymous subset of roughly 500,000 U.S. business clients” (translation: they looked at the change in payroll among 500,000 employers… past & present clients… to extrapolate the number of private sector jobs created nationally) representing “23-million employees”. Using this method, ADP has been accurately predicting corporate employment for years (there’s even reason to believe the BLS uses ADP’s own estimates in their forecasts. When I checked BLS figures for May, they match ADP’s estimates). For June, they surmised that “roughly 176,000 jobs” were created by private businesses last month. Yet the very next day, the BLS released their official figures that in fact almost half that number… just 84,000… new jobs were created (reduced to a net of just 80,000 following 4,000 layoffs in the Public Sector (down from the month before according to “U.S. News & World Report).

So how did ADP get it so wrong? I contacted the author of the article citing ADP’s numbers Thursday, and the only answer he had for me is that “ADP has historically been very good [at predicting the monthly job figures],” but have been “badly off the last four months”. Not exactly an answer. What does that mean? Does ADP… by dumb luck… just happen to represent businesses that did most of the hiring? I’m not about to start investigating the methodology used by one of the largest accounting firms in the country. But it’s worth noting that whereas the BLS reported “69,000 net new jobs created last May” (82,000 private sector jobs offset by 13,000 public sector job losses), ADP revised their May figures UP from “133,000” to “136,000” private sector jobs created in May. Not only are they standing by their numbers despite the BLS figures, they doubled down on them. Very odd. I’ll send them an e-mail this week and see if they can provide a reasonable explanation. (If the economy really is creating 70-90 thousand more jobs a month than the government’s own agency is reporting, that would seem like pretty big news, don’t you agree?)

Meanwhile, Republicans have been quick to lay ALL the blame at the feet of President Obama and his policies”. But 2008 wasn’t the last election we had in this country. 2010 was. Yet for some infuriating reason, I’m not hearing any (or very few) Democrats going on the airwaves and pointing out this one obvious fact: Republicans were swept into power in 2010, retaking control of the House and made gains in the Senate after promising “jobs, jobs, jobs”. Now, suddenly, 18 months later, we are to render the GOP-run House and obstructionists in the Senate blameless, and lay all fault at the feet of President Obama? Back during the primaries, Governor Romney ridiculed Newt Gingrich for trying to take credit for all the jobs created during the Clinton Administration: “The government doesn’t create jobs! People do!”, quipped Romney. Yet now, six months later, the president is solely to blame for low job numbers? Last October, Republicans successfully filibustered the first part of “The American Jobs Act”, which would have created “1.9-Million jobs” according to Moody’s financial Analyst Mark Zandi. The Act… which is actually a series of bills… contains lots of tax cuts for businesses that hire returning veterans and the long-term unemployed (and, I’m proud to say, an idea Mugsy’s Rap Sheet petitioned for last year)… things you’d never dream Republicans would dare filibuster without looking like complete & total unpatriotic partisan hypocrites, certain to be raked over the coals for the next 12 months if they did. But they did, and the Media didn’t. And now they’re getting away with asking “where’s the President’s jobs plan?” (Note to GOP: The President’s plan still exists) Are we to forget Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s famous “one-term president” comment? And more importantly, will voters ignore their historic obstruction, blame President Obama and reward the GOP in November?

In 2008, professional Right-Wing bomb-thrower Ann Coulter wrote a book entitled “Treason”, where she accused Democrats of (among other things) “hoping for the country to fail simply to prove President Bush’s economic policies wrong” (not a verbatim quote, but close enough). She argued that Democrats… and Liberals specifically… were supposedly “rooting for failure” and “secretly hoping for another 9/11”. I’ve often said, “When a Conservative accuses you of something, it’s either because they are currently doing it themselves or assuming you’re doing it now because that’s what they would do if they were in your position.” Two years later, Rush Limbaugh says (and then repeatedly defends saying) he “hopes Obama fails”, while McConnell defends undermining the President for the next two years. Was I right or was I right? Are Republicans guilty of “treason”, Ann? You’ve been pretty mum on the subject as of late.

And what of Governor Romney’s “plan” to create jobs and turn around the economy? Republicans point to Romney’s “59-point jobs plan” (pdf)… which MSNBC’s Ezra Klein responded to thusly:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Klein: [Romney’s plan] is full of “long-term” ideas like opening trade with South America, cracking down on China’s Trade Policies and approving the Keystone XL pipeline. […] Full of tax cuts with no [stated] way to pay for them… which is why it can’t be scored by the CBO.

Looking at Romney’s “Plan” for myself, the first thing I noticed right off the bat: much of it is lifted straight out of Boehner’s “30 Job Bills” pamphlet that I already investigated last January. How do I know? Because Romney’s second listed job idea: “Approve the Free Trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea”President Obama already signed into law last December. And like that, before you can say “incompetent hack”, Romney is down to just “58 job ideas”. And a “plan” listing ideas without explaining how he’d pay for them isn’t a “plan”, it’s a wishlist.

But getting back to my original point, there seems to be a collective amnesia about the fact the last election wasn’t 2008, but 2010, where Republicans won BIG on a platform asking “Where are the jobs?” and promising a “laser-like focus” on “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs”. Where’s THAT conversation? How come, when I turn on my TV, I don’t hear a steady stream of pundits asking Republicans why they haven’t done peanut-butter-piss in two years, and whether or not they deserve a share of the blame? Watch how fast these hypocrites will go from accusing President Obama of “blaming everyone but himself” to blaming the Democratic president and Senate for why they don’t deserve to share in the blame for the mediocre job numbers of the last 18 months. “So were you lying when you promised jobs, jobs, jobs? I never once heard you say it was contingent upon winning control of BOTH Houses.”

No, instead, we have a Republican presidential nominee that doesn’t know the president has a 400+ page Jobs Bill of ACTUAL legislation that explains in detail how to create nearly two million jobs immediately, and a Republican controlled Congress that doesn’t think they deserve any share of the blame after filibustering it.
 

From our archives: Billionaire Mort Zuckerman, Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News & World Report in March 2008 BEFORE the crash of Wall Street:
 

“The Bush Recession has barely begun.” – March, 2008

Notable since yesterday/Sunday, Zuckerman was blaming President Obama for not creating jobs faster. Ah, the miracle of YouTube.

 


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July 9, 2012 · Admin Mugsy · 3 Comments - Add
Posted in: Economy, Election, Jobs, Politics

3 Responses

  1. Republicans Need You to Forget There Was An Election in 2010 … | The Bush Recession - July 9, 2012

    […] Republicans Need You to Forget There Was An Election in 2010. […]

  2. Trantorian - July 11, 2012

    Mugsy, I love your site. You nailed more conservative hypocrisy. Nice work.

  3. Mugsy - July 11, 2012

    Thanks. Be sure to check back every Monday for the latest Op/Ed.

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