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.
Don’t believe that for a minute.
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Don’t believe “what” for a minute? You must have posted your Post #19 to the wrong person. I said nothing in reference to what you posted.
We will have two choices in November, and two choices only. Romney was my fourth choice in the primaries - but given the nature of the challenges we will face on January 20, Mitt Romney might well turn out to be the right man for the job ahead. Let's compare:
- Newt Gingrich. Does a career academic and legislator like Newt possess the executive skills necessary to effectively turn around and run the world's biggest business?
- Rick Santorum. Like Newt, Santorum is a legislator who's never had the sole responsibility for running a large organization.
- Herman Cain. Herman is a proven turnaround executive, with a record second only to Romney's. But he didn't win.
- Rick Perry. Perry is a well-proven governor of a very large state, but he didn't win, either.
- Sarah Palin. Also a governor, with a good but brief track record - but she chose not to run.
Mitt Romney is our candidate. No "Richie Rich" slurs can erase his record as one of America's top business executives and leading turnaround specialists. To a dispassionate observer without emotional ties to any of the losing GOP candidates (like mine to Gingrich and Cain), it might seem that Providence has provided the right man for the job in Mitt Romney. What is certain is that Barack Obama is not.
It's time to get started. Let's vote.
Only liberals use that hateful rhetoric. You sure you are cheering for the right guy?
hmmmmmm....compared to Bob Dole, Jack Kemp, John McCain etc. , maybe he IS the most conservative. I thought Bush would be super sonservative, but I didn’t account for his mod. DEMOCRAT wife.....she might vote for a Bush, but I’ll bet she votes for every other Democrat. Nice Lady, but LIBERAL if you ask me....and she gave him VERY bad advice.
i SWEAR I did NOT read your post before I wrote mine!!!
Overstate? We had at least that many options, any of which was far superior to Mitt, yet all lost because of the “I want a REAL conservative” all-or-nothing dissatisfaction.
bttt
Actually I am a regular reader of FR and I have never seen that figure. I knew it would go up, but no idea it was 150%.
What is the source of those figures?
Do you think that if either Santorum or Gingrich was the GOP nominee right now we would be happy with where we were?
Would we have a good, solid, across-the-board conservative candidate?
Would our candidate be more popular, and more admired, and doing better in the polls than Romney is now?
Would the leftist attacks against our nominee be as ineffective and failing as they are now?
Would the focus of the campaigns and the election and the media coverage be as much about the economy and about Obama as it is now?
I think the answer to each of these questions is "No."
Your Post #41 is spot on.
Obama knows that Bill tried to get Hillary to run in 2012.
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And, Obama knows that Fort Marcy park is not far from the White House.
Sorry, didn’t read your Post. I have other novels to read and no time to read them either.
Primarily because there's no conservative party in MA -- "one is the loneliest number," so to speak. The MA GOP will fight tooth and nail to avoid putting up an actual conservative candidate. And they're bitterly opposed to social conservatives. Even fiscally, as far as I can see, Northeast Republicans have a long history of being "pro big business" in the sense of government favoritism, at the expense of everyone else, including small business. Free markets are not their bag, much less individual liberty.
Remember, Reagan carried MA both times. We just so seldom have a conservative candidate to vote for.
And how do we decide who is a conservative and thus is allowed to run in the conservative primaries and caucuses, and who is a RINO and must sit out those contests and wait for the general GOP primaries?
This proposal does not solve our problem, it merely moves it.
Yes indeed, we can just wave a copy of the Constitution when they show up and they will just go away, right?
It should be abundantly clear to any one over the age of twelve, that the Constitution or the law doesn’t matter anymore.
even the alleged Romney haters should be happy and hopeful for Romney to right this nation’s ship of state.
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Sorry, but they’re not. Romney was not my choice, but the Conservative purists on here will bite their noses off to spite their faces. They are so pissed that their guy, or gal, didn’t get the nomination that they would rather vote for some Third Party dolt or stay home on Election Day, and see this nation go to hell in a hand basket than vote for someone who is not the ideal candidate but is better than the Marxist Muslim in the White House. Apparently, you have never been on the receiving end of the attacks from the Conservative purists on this website.
You misdirect with your premise. In this race you have Evil and Less Evil.
Destruction of free enterprise was Obama’s mission. What I don’t understand is why the Democrats went along with his destructive goal.
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We have become an Entitlement Culture. To hell with 40 million murdered babies, same-sex marriage opponents, a $5 Trillion debt, 15% unemployment..... JUST GIVE ME MINE; DAMN IT.
God Bless Texas. My kid is stationed there. I like Texas a lot. Feel like I’m in America.
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Well, git yo butt down here. We’re thinking about seceding from the Union if Obama is reelected. So, git here while there is still space.
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