Don's Tuesday Column

THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson  Red Bluff Daily News   7/28/2015

        Obama’s jobs, economic failure

Let’s take another look at employment and the economy; Emperor Obama and his cheerleaders insist all is coming up roses—but is that really the case?

Political cartoonist Michael Ramirez is a rare conservative cartoonist among what any honest journalist would admit is a liberal/progressive-dominated field. A July 7 drawing captured this issue: Obama pronounces from his podium, “We created 223,000 jobs in June…Unemployment is now down to 5.3 %.” That’s simply titled, “The Obama Spin.”

Next to Obama, in the rest of the panel, is “The Reality”: “The labor force participation rate is 62.5%, a 38 year low.” (It was 62.8% last November—employment has gotten worse since then) Next to that are other factual employment data: “The civilian labor force declined in June by 432,000—Almost 94 million Americans are NOT working.” (Caps and underscore in original)

Then, “To put that (94 million not working) in perspective, here are the total populations of some of our allies: (Under a small outline of each country) United Kingdom=64 million, France=67 million, Italy=61 million.” Uncle Sam is holding a sign: “A job” next to his “I want” message. Get it? Instead of Uncle Sam saying, “I want you,” he’s saying, “I want a job.”

The shortest explanation would be that America has the lowest labor force participation—the adult population that is working or looking for work—since the Carter presidency. In June, almost twice as many people quit working or looking as found jobs. Many have given up looking because private sector businesses aren’t hiring or, due to Obamacare, they are keeping their employee totals down and using part-timers. Obama bragged about adding 223,000 jobs in a month; that is just about the same as population growth—no big deal.

One analyst, David Stockman (Reagan’s OMB director), calculated the current number of potential adult, full time workers, i.e. those between 18 and 65 not in either the military or prison. That figure is about 210 million, out of 320 million, people. If they all had full time jobs, that would total about 420 billion hours of work in a year. We had, due to the massive growth of part-time jobs and the unemployed, around 240 billion actual hours worked in 2014.

By that measure, there is only about 60 percent of America’s potential work being utilized; we are about 40 percent below what you could call “full employment.” Stockman’s exact figure is “42.9 percent unemployment,” which should be compared with various rates from the Bureau of Labor Standards: U-3=5.3%, U-6=10.4 %. The numbers are dependent on definitions but it is undeniable that unemployment is many times worse than the 5.3% touted by Obama, his defenders and apologists. Search “Real unemployment rate is 42 percent” for details.

I submit (it’s searchable) “This Simple Graph Compares Reagan’s and Obama’s ‘Recoveries’” as another way to contrast employment growth in different recoveries. First, we know that the recession officially ended in June of 2009, when 1) none of Obama’s economic policies took effect so therefore, 2) Obama contributed nothing to ending the recession. Every measurable aspect of recoveries is comparable to other presidents and other recoveries.

“When Ronald Reagan took over from Jimmy Carter in ’81, things were actually worse economically compared to when Obama took over from George W. Bush in ’08.” Unemployment, inflation and interest rates were massively higher for Reagan than Obama.

Yet, the difference in job growth after 37 months of recovery could not be more dramatic. The chart, “Cumulative Job Growth Net of Population Growth,” published May, 2014, showed that nearly 4 million jobs, above the population growth, were added under Reagan; under Obama, that figure is negative 5 million jobs. So, if jobs increased only as fast as the population grew, Obama could boast (yes, he would still beat his tiny drum) that there were 5 million more Americans employed. I’ve looked at BLS numbers for Bush; job growth, overall, slightly exceeded population growth. Unemployment however, was at or under 5%.

“By the end of their second year in office, economic growth under Reagan averaged 7.1%, under Obama an anemic 2.8%. So, how did Reagan manage it? Across-the-board tax cuts, non-defense spending cuts, a restrained monetary supply, and deregulation. What’s Obama done? Tax increases, spending increases, a massive money-supply increase through ‘quantitative easing,’ and an explosive increase in regulations.”

Perhaps the headline, “Unemployed face frustration amid overall job gains” (Daily News, Feb. 8, AP), illustrates what much news coverage has been and remains: the media arm of the Obama-crat machine putting the best spin on a failed recovery and sluggish job growth.

In “The Obama Economic Record: The Worst Five Years Since World War II” (8/11/2014), Dr. Tracy Miller writes: “After four years of slow growth, the latest data reveals that the U.S. economy shrank at a 2.9 percent annual rate during the 1^st quarter of 2014” (DP: 1^st Q of 2015 also shrank; Obama’s average 1^st Q growth was the lowest since 1947)…Not well reported is that “Over the first five years of Obama’s presidency, the U.S. economy grew more slowly than during any five-year period since just after the end of WW II, averaging less than 1.3 percent per year. Removing the sharp recession of 1945-46 following WW II…Obama ranks dead last among all presidents since 1932.” This slow growth should not be a surprise in light of his policies.

(To be continued next week)

Tea Party Patriots will host District 1 Supervisor, Steve Chamblin tonight, 6 PM at the Westside Grange, Walnut St. west of Baker.