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.
No doubt he “tried real hard” to achieve those impressive results.
Welp I’ve been on active threads disrupted by what you term “conservative purists.”
At times these types are a pain but I can’t get mad. Us Tea Party types have gotten so puked upon by the GOP Elite. I’m from Delaware and put up with Mike Castle for years before we got sick of the man and primaried him outta there.
I seriously doubt that these conservative purists would be unhappy should Romney step up to the plate and be a great leader. If so then they are not worth the time of day.
Understand there’s a difference between not wanting it and not admitting it.
I’m willing to give Romney the time of day and while I’m at it, let me elaborate on my prognostication of what will happen should Romney start reaching across the aisle and other GOP Blue Blood shenanigans that got us where we are today.
Four years, folks! We’ll have four years to ruminate and discuss all actions by Romney that are liberal, in no way conservative.
There is already a “Tea Party” established, of sorts. Don’t let MSNBC tell you there’s no more tea party. We’re out here and we’re ready to act, we know it if they don’t.
Let Romney start reaching across the aisles and a third party WILL be formed.
I can see it from my house.
Cause if we swallow our convictions and vote for Romney, AND...if Romney starts betraying us as Mike Castle did as he peed upon our feet and told us it was raining....hey, everybody has a limit. The most abused wife, child or animal will rise up and strike back at some point.
The disappointed Tea Party will rise up and all across the fruited plains local and more structured organizations will be formed.
This election will be the LAST election where conservatives will follow the third party rule. Cause if Romney starts governing like a Democrat...WHAT WILL WE HAVE TO LOSE?
And while a new third party might take time to grow and multiply, it will happen.
Comes Romney’s mid-term elections he’ll have a third party to fight against.
I believe this.
I really do.
If this is the case then a third party will never be able to surpass the GOP quickly enough to avoid it simply becoming a mechanism for ensuring 'Rat domination. We don't have ten or fifteen years to hand to the 'Rats while building a whole new conservative party from the ground up. We have six or eight years to make large, fundamental changes or else the ATMs are going to stop spitting out anything worthwhile.
If we are going to shrink the size of the federal government, reform entitlements, cut taxes, cut regulations, end Obamacare, and open up American energy resources for development, and if we are going to do it over the next six or eight years, then we will do it through the GOP.
Damn, Kudlow knows how to open.
Brilliant post.
It seems to me Romney is the only game in town these days.
I just wish people would stop predicting the Obama demise. We need to spend our waking moments making sure that demise comes to pass. Lots can happen between now and November...not the least of which will be the bogus numbers we will start seeing in the Labor reports.
I am going to pull the level for Mitt, but to think that LK is anything but a republican “homer” is a joke. He has never seen a program by any republican that wasn’t Tony the Tiger GREAT. Larry is not a very good ideaman.
I don’t even know about this Madden guy, which is my fault. If I did know more about him I would probably feel just as you do.
But let’s say that Madden is a creep and a bushwacker and a backstabber and a fiend: if he’s willing to put his dark talents to work against the Punk in Chief, then I’ll back his every dastardly move.
It’s going to be war out there, and I don’t care how down-and-dirty Obama’s opponents are are...I just want them to be effective.
You see much of this around these parts?
I don't.
What I see is a bunch of people posting reasons not to vote for Romney.
“Reagan won it was one on one”
You are an young no nothing. Howard Baker, Bob Dole and democrat turned republican John Connoly were the early front runners against Reagan. Bush was polling at less than 1 percent when he won Iowa. Bush was had a very good campaign staff and he eventually forced a one on one match with Reagan who was actually the guy next in line due to his previous run for president in 1976.
Those 40% conservative are mostly CENTER-RIGHT, not far-right. Which is why we seldom get a pure conservative nominee.
The real problem with healthcare is not mandates. The REAL PROBLEM is ever escalating costs, far above the CPI, year after year. And that has been happening for 25 years WITHOUT mandates.
So why not focus on the real problem? What we really need is competition. Which means we should be able to buy insurance from any outfit OUTSIDE of our state. Right now you can NOT do that.
We also need to get rid of costs associated with defensive medicine practice which is the result of out of control mal-practice suits and awards. We would be better off to switch to a system where if the litigant loses, he has to pay defender’s legal costs. That will eliminate 90%+ frivolous law suits.
Another very important reform needed is availability of insurance covering catastrophic hospital cost only and available from any state. If such insurance was available, mandates become mostly irrelevant.
Those 4 million jobs are accompanied by 5 million layoffs. Which is why there is a net job loss since Obama was anointed.
>> And Conservatives could not unite behind a one float parade. That’s why we get a RINO every four years.
The pool of candidates this primary season was typically weak. Herman and Newt were my favored candidates, but they too were far from stellar. Maybe a few Scott Walker’s will rise to the occasion in 2016.
In order to see the kind of change we’re expecting, we need to deconstruct the choke-hold the GOP insiders have at the local level. Perhaps then, the Moderates would migrate to the Democrat party where they belong.
I don't really need to say anything. Add Michelle Malkin and a host of others to the list. Romney is a day late and a dollar short in his responses. If you want your boy to win, then you better get some zing into the guy.
It's John McCain and Bob Dole all over again. Going around being nice. And what did it get them. Dole sells viagra and McCain ...well...McCain always did sell McCain.
Agreed,I want to see someone start attacking this traitor
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