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Silverleaf - LOVE THE AD!!!

Is this ad going to be seen on television?

This is my published letter to the editor regarding the economy:

Despite the Democrat’s mantra that the economy is in trouble and that over 2.3 million jobs have disappeared, the truth is considerably different.

There are two primary measures of unemployment. The Department of Labor conducts a monthly Household Survey, which has always generated the official unemployment rate used by the government. This official survey shows 2.4 million jobs have been added to the work force between November ’02 and February ‘04. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) conducts its payroll survey by phoning businesses. It is unprecedented to use the BLS unemployment statistics when discussing America’s unemployment rate and yet this is where the Democrats are getting their 2.3 million lost jobs figure.

For example, had the unofficial BLS survey been used in the mid-90’s, we would have had a 12.8% unemployment rate using the same methodology. Instead, in 1996, the unemployment rate was 5.6%, the exact same rate as we have today.

The government began collecting unemployment data in 1939. Since that time, there has never been positive job growth two years after a recession ended. Never.

Other economic indicators are just as good:

-- The number of working Americans, 138.5 million, is a level never previously attained in our history.

-- The percentage of families living in poverty today averages 9.4%, a decrease of approximately 1.1% from the 90’s.

-- Home ownership is currently 68.6% which is an increase of 1.1% from the 90’s.

-- A manufacturing survey released in February showed US factories boomed at their highest level in 17 years. The Institute for Supply Management reported more and more factories were reporting hiring although it has not yet shown up in government employment statistics. Manufacturing makes up nearly one-fifth of the US economy.

-- The combined net worth of all US households is $44.4 trillion, the highest ever achieved.

-- Consumer prices (inflation) increased just 1.9% last year.

-- The stock market has advanced 45% in the last 12 months.

--The gross domestic product, the total goods and service produced in the US, increased in the 3rd quarter last year at an annual rate of 8.2% after inflation and 4.1% in the 4th quarter. Growth in the 90’s averaged a little better than 3% annually.

-- The wealthiest five percent of our population pays more than half the taxes, while people at the bottom half pay just 4% of all taxes in the country. Economists credit the recovering economy to the Bush tax cuts as opposed to what an increased regressive taxation on the nation’s wealthiest would have had on the economy.

-- The average wage of American workers is currently $15.40 vs. $11.80 during the 90’s.

Despite 9/11 and the over $500 billion it took out of our economy, it appears the economy is booming.

I will leave it to the reader to speculate why the media seems driven to repeat unchallenged the Democrat’s unemployment numbers and constant derision of the US economy.