3.15.2004
Bush "Jobs" Are More Smoke and Mirrors
"I don't understand how poor people think." --George Bush, 8.26.03
You are probably aware by now that the Bush administration is comfortable playing fast and loose with facts and figures to manipulate the goodwill of the American people. That an attempt to change the classification of an individual serving burgers at McDonalds from "Service Industry" to fall under the heading of "Manufacturing" to pump up Bush employment figures is a technique of deception this administration is comfortable with.
We are told that unemployment is at 5.6 %, but we are not told that figure can be attributed to arcane statistical method;
a manner of counting which lets the long term unemployed, those who have given up the search for non-existent jobs-
these 392,000 former wage earners just disappear from the unemployment rolls. To get the benefit this sort of accounting gives the President imagine not paying your car payment for a year- then the bill disappearing and you can tell folks about your great credit rating. Ain't gonna happen to we "little people". Yet reporters, people paid to know better leave contextual facts out of the news.
Just to keep up with the population joining the eligible workforce 150,000 new jobs a month need to appear. 21,000 new jobs were created last month. All in the government sector. Much like the month of December there were no new jobs created. Zip. Zilch. You hear the soundbites, "A job created here, a job created there, they all add up and prove the good of my tax cut". Bullshit. Go to Jobwatch.Org and get the facts that conveniently get left out of the evening news and the speeches of the current White House resident. When the average Joe has little time to look into the facts and media soundbites of less than a minutes duration are what inform our collective opinion about these important issues Mr Bush can get away with these oft told untruths.
The media that should inform us has a vested interest in promoting GOP lies. Corporate America, those we trust to give us the news are owned by the same one tenth of one percent of the US population that contribute 85 percent of the itemized contributions funding our nations election campaigns. If we were told the truth the general sense of outrage engendered by an informed electorate might actually see taxes rise on those among us most able to pay them. You can imagine how unpopular this information is among America's monied elite, and why the realities of todays job market, although visible to you and me are not spoken of.
Counting the "missing labor force", people discouraged by long looking and people that never entered the job market
unemployment is up to 7.1%. Those missing 2,808,000 Americans change Mr Bush's more rosy figure to reflect the reality that you and I see in our neighborhoods, towns and cities. Discouraged young people, those under 24 years old, are at a historic high- if they were participating in the workforce at the same level as in March 2001 the official unemployment level would be 6.6 percent.
Companies are more efficient, through technology work is getting done with fewer workers. Remember this when you here how America is "picking up". Mr Bush promised 2.6 million jobs this year (after promising 1.7 million last year-
53,000 jobs were lost in 2003, seeing his "taxcut for the rich" economic program come up 1,753,000 jobs short) and we have to hope he is right but his prediction seems more rhetoric than reality based.
About his much touted jobless taxcuts and our federal deficit, to cut the deficit in half by 2009 as he has claimed these are the changes that our nation will need to suffer:
Spending on defense and homeland security will fall by 14 percent as a share of the economy by 2009. Total domestic appropriations will plummet by 24 percent, with huge cuts in science (minus 19 percent), pollution control (minus 27 percent), transportation (minus 18 percent), disaster relief (minus 49 percent), education (minus 22 percent), housing assistance (minus 33 percent), and law enforcement (minus 20 percent).
He also figures in using the projected Social Security surplus of 263 billion dollars to more than halve the projected 501
billion dollar deficit. Our payroll taxes at work- but not as how they are intended.
More on that tomarrow...
3/15/2004
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