Republicans Delusional On The Economy And Government

Working Away - photo by Boris Rasin

The December 2011 jobs report was released today and the news is quite positive. A net of 200,000 new jobs were created in December. The breakdown is 212,000 private sector jobs and -12,000 public sector jobs. Unfortunately this continues a multi-year long trend of government job loss and is the only serious negative in an otherwise really strong showing for the last month of 2011. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.5% and is now at it’s lowest level since March 2009. The past 6 months of job creation is the best 6 month period since 2006.

This jobs report along with the job creation track record for Obama over the past 15 months – starting in October 2010 – is at odds with the narrative that Republican presidential candidates want to sell. Their narrative is simple, ‘Obama is killing jobs and he is overseeing a massive expansion of government’. The only problem with this narrative is you would have to be delusional to believe it. This narrative is false because every month since October 2010 has seen overall job growth driven entirely by the private sector. During that same period of time almost every month has seen a loss of government jobs. Modest compared to the private sector gains – and still net job growth each month – but if government is shedding jobs every month how can Republicans say there is a massive expansion of government? If the economy has seen job growth each of the past 15 months how can Republicans say Obama is killing jobs? Apparently they are unfazed.

Just a few examples:

“I think our economy is overcoming what Barack Obama is pushing in its place” -Rick Santorum

In response to the positive jobs report Rick Santorum said it could be due to “optimism that Republicans will take the White House”

“This president doesn’t understand how the economy works…It’s time to get a president who does.” -Mitt Romney

“If you like the way this enormous expansion of government is going…” -Rick Santorum

“Three full years into the Obama presidency, and there are still 1.7 million fewer Americans going to work today than there were on Obama’s Inauguration day.” -Newt Gingrich

That last one by Gingrich is classic Republican nonsense. Sure, it’s technically correct but it pretends the Obama presidency exists in a vacuum unaffected by the state of the economy when he took office. Read The Left Call story from earlier today – The Republican Lie That ‘Obama Is A Job Killer’ In One Chart – to see the full picture.

Republican candidates are scrambling to find a new way to continue their defective narrative. Is it working?

dks

photo by Boris Rasin via Flickr

Economy

#December 2011 jobs#delusional#job creation#job growth#Mitt Romney#Newt Gingrich#President Obama#private sector#public sector#Republican#Rick Santorum