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I think that FR needs to respond to the information and conclusions on this chart. This chart has been around for several years, and this is Revision 5.

Isn't the Clinton/Gore recovery a direct result of Reagan's trick down economics?

Don't let the Rat mantra that "2.2 million jobs have been lost" stand. It is a LIE.

The actual net loss of jobs under President Bush is 330,000.

Business Investors Daily wrote about this last week. Below are excerpts as read by Rush:

I've got a story today from Investors Business Daily. You know, I was tempted to fire off a note to Bill Schneider today but it wouldn't matter. The fact of the matter is we had this number back in I guess it was either September or November, I'm not sure which. Well, it would have been November, yeah, latter part of November. Somebody ran some numbers, the net job loss at that time was 330,000. The number of jobs lost versus the number of jobs created led to a net loss then over the three years of 200 and some odd thousand, 300,000, 330, and that's slowly being wiped out now with the new job creation that's happening with our roaring economy which is leading the world out of its recession, that's not being reported here.

The Investors Business Daily today has a story by Jed Graham, "For nearly a year a debate has been brewing over which of the government's employment measures is wrong. Monthly payroll figures derived from a survey of 160,000 employers show a net loss of 537,000 jobs the past two years. But, the monthly survey of about 60,000 households shows the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs in that span." Well, we just heard CNN report there are two and a half million jobs lost. Now we find out from Investors Business Daily there are other government numbers that show 2.4 million jobs have been created.

Come on, folks, use your brains on this. This is an ever-expanding economy, I don't care whether we're in a down cycle or not we're always expanding. The population base is always expanding. We are pretty near the statistical full employment number anyway. It's just not logical to assume that all we do is lose jobs. And he didn't say on CNN net job loss, that's not what they're trying to do. They're trying to create the impression that there are two and a half people that used to work that don't because they can't. And that's not what happens. People find work and leave work all the time. It is a cycle, you know it yourself. This idea that there haven't been any jobs created, these guys that report this know this is all a bunch of bohunk but that doesn't fit the agenda, it doesn't fit what the purpose here is. This is to paint a picture of doom and gloom of the U.S. economy, going into this election season, because it matches what? It matches precisely the Democratic Party presidential election playbook. And it just isn't the case. It's the exact opposite.

The economy is roaring back. It's bringing the world back out of its global recession. There are jobs being created. We just had a story the other day of all the unreported self-employed jobs that these employment surveys do not cover. And there were 15 million jobs, net 15 million jobs that do not get reported as people employed in this country. Well, throw that in and it wipes out any of Bill Schneider or any other Democrat's number of two million or two and a half million jobs lost. All of this is a crock. This is the most powerful economic engine in America, and it's rolling, and it's expanding and it is growing. We are the wealthiest country on the face of the earth. To try to paint a picture of this country as a soup line, soup kitchen on the way to depression, is simply purposeful dishonesty, pure and simple.

The chart does not show the end of the year 2003 with a downturn in unemployment, despite the widening deficit.

Also, ask your Liberals friends if they would not have touched the surplus after 9/11. Any responsible person would have.

the chart itself doesn't appear to pass the "5 millisecond attention-span" test, so I wouldn't worry about it.

The unemployment rate was above 6% the first 3 years of Clinton's term. It's now 5.6%. The federal debt increased every year under Clinton, there was no surplus. He moved normal expenditures off line to camouflage it.

We know already that figures don't lie, but liars figure. Charts reflect statistics, too, but let's just say they are subject to interpretation. For example:

(1) Here it is February, 2004, but the chart is updated only into 2003. I wonder why. Could it be that the unemployment rate has dropped to 5.6% from the 6.4% they show as their last number? But, of course, that would conflict with their political argument that unemployment rises with rising deficits.

(2) When the economy falls into recession, unemployment rises, welfare costs rise, tax revenues fall and deficits rise. No news in this. Even the Keynesian economists advising the IBEW (if anyone is) agree with this. But IBEW gets it backwards and wrong, saying deficits cause unemployment rather than the other way around. A primary economic "tool" of the Keynesians has been the idea that deficit spending will "stimulate" the economy during recessions, adding jobs at the time they are needed most and jumpstarting economic activity into recovery. That has not been a valid analysis, but IBEW is wrong even in the eyes of FDR's so-called economic theory.

(3) Classical (supply side) economic theory teaches that recessions and unemployment may be caused by adverse events such as war or attack, or back bad fiscal policy (taxes are too high), or by bad monetary policy (the currency standard deteriorates by inflating [losing value] or by deflating [gaining value]. In 1996-2002, the Fed caused severe deflation, the dollar gaining about 50% in value, crushing debtors and destroying business profits as prices dropped. Prices of commodities crashed first, then stock prices began crashing in early 2000 as profits disappeared. Of course, jobs were cut as profits vanished.

(4) GWB was right to propose tax cuts during his 2000 campaign, because that would help in restoring profitability and, thus, jobs. Fortunately, he got the tax cuts passed before 9/11, when the economy was hurt badly by the attack. But the budget balancers kept most of the tax reductions postponed into future years, so we were not restoring profitability or jobs. Then Bill Thomas, Chairman of Ways & Means, pulled the supply side tax cuts of 2003 out of the impasse with the bean counters in the Senate (mostly Democrats, if you can believe it, and a few Republicans). The 2003 cuts improved after tax returns on capital and labor sharply, and the economy is taking off.

(5) That still leaves the monetary policy problem unsolved. Now the Fed has moved its practices from severe deflation all the way back to the other extreme of inflationary. Believe it or not, as much as I deplore saying it, France and the Euro are using better monetary policy than our Fed. The Euro has been essentially stable in value the past year, but the dollar has now lost value so much that it has been falling against the Euro. We are fortunate that the G-7 is pressuring the U.S. to steady the dollar. Hopefully, we will do so. Otherwise, foreigners may decide to sell their U.S. stocks, giving GWB a rough stock market this year.

One more thing. The Republican leadership needs to recognize that this George Soros thing about putting millions into the Democrats' campaign against GWB is tied to monetary policy, not Soros' so-called mission for world peace. Soros wants continued volatility in currency exchange rates. Meaning he likes the Fed just the way it is. GWB is a threat to him because GWB may reform monetary policy. We can only hope.

dry-wall union=illegal aliens
tree trimmer union=illegal aliens
from ibew 47 news paper:
"The second issue was that on December 12, the majority of the Asplundh employees did not report to work in support of the “Driver License for Undocumented Immigrants” issue. This put the members at risk of losing their jobs and put IBEW #47 in a bad position as well because their actions were not authorized by the local. "

"Owner talked with the police and with his nearby neighbors. Owner made the comment that the Asplund tree trimmers were just here and when he lived in Cherokee Park, after the tree trimmers were in the neighborhood there was a rash of robberies. "

want mexico up here? let your rep know...

Invite to Visit this Thread - Good FR Responses so far!

The charts are accurate.

The notes on the charts are standard liberal mantra independent of economic conditions.

What is truly shocking is that unemployment was 5.9% in November. This is lower than the average for the last thirty years. It is also below the threshold (6%) that economists once advocated as being the minimum effective level for the economy.

As far as discouraged workers only 5.4% are so. The rest are mostly students and others who returned to school after part-time employment. Finally, the late 90's and early 00's were unique and the employment rate of 4% or less is unlikely to be duplicated until all the boomers are retired.

If you question my facts in this matter I refer you to the article American's Fortunes that appeared in the January/February

When you add these facts to the great increases in both productivity and economic growth it remains a puzzle why the Pubbies and the President are so apologetic.

Under the Clinton presidency the national debt increased by an additional $1.6 trillion.

Historical Debt Outstanding - Annual 1950 - 2000

Also creative accounting gave us the so-called surplus. Check the following link and see item 8 on page 2.

ANNUAL REPORT ON THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT 1999
For fiscal years 1991 and beyond, the excess of Social Security taxes over outlays for Social Security is excluded by law from deficit or surplus calculations. The Clinton administration, however, has elected to include the Social Security Trust Fund in their deficit and surplus calculations, which has the effect of increasing the reported surplus by $86 billion in 1998 and by $124.7 billion in 1999.

INTREP - Garbage ALERT