A quick reality check from recent U.S. history:
October 2008: CNN Money from the final months of Republican administration:
Jobs: Worst in 5 years. Payrolls shrink by 159,000 – 9th straight month of cuts. ’08 total: 760,000.
August Jobs Report: U.S. Economy Adds 96,000 Jobs; Unemployment Rate Falls To 8.1 Percent
In contrast to 760,000 jobs lost in the final year of the Bush administration, approximately 1.3 million new jobs have been created this year.
Bottom line: if you want the economy to continue to recover, vote Democrat. If you want to go back to the past, vote for Scott Brown and the Republican team he represents.
Discuss
76 Comments . Leave a comment below.So what Bob is selling to us is this, “It could be worse”.
Bob won’t mention that 58% of all the new jobs Obama has created are low paying, service type jobs that teenagers should be going after. These jobs pay between $7-$14 an hour.
The unemployment rate dropped because we had a spike in people leaving the workforce, over 360,000. If not for that, the unemployment would be 8.4%. Bob should retitle his post, and say if you want a disability check, vote Obama/Warren because they are experts in that area. If you want jobs that can pay the bills, put gas in the car, well, you are on your own then with Obama. Warren wants a carbon tax, so you can’t afford gas anyways.
This jobs report is sad, pathetic, and we can do better. If Bush was in office, Bob would be singing a different tune. I hope “low-information” voters see through the 8.1% number, I know everyone here does.
Wow, what great news, Dan! Your crusade to pressure Elizabeth Warren to take a public and clear position on the carbon tax has finally succeeded! For months now, you’ve been noting that she’s failed to take any public position on this burning (figuratively and literally) issue. But now you’ve won and she’s finally come out in favor of the tax. Great work!
Just one quick follow-up. Can you share with us a citation on Warren’s new position?
That in itself, would allow a carbon tax. Based on her reluctance not to take a position on the issue directly, isn’t that all you need to know. Keep her on MSNBC and off talk radio. But if she has a date in Waltham in the near future, by all means, let me know and I will be happy to attend a meet and greet and respectfully ask her.
Won’t you agree, it’s rather pathetic she wont tell us?
“I believe in science,” Warren said. “The data are overwhelming about climate change, and it is imperative that we take action.”
While she criticized Brown’s vote to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate greenhouse gases, she did not say how the country should go about cutting carbon emissions, such as through a cap-and-trade program or a gas tax, both of which could potentially reduce economic growth.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2012/08/03/senator_scott_brown_and_elizabeth_warren_clash_over_their_environmental_views/?page=3
I’m not sure what you mean when you say that favoring the EPA regulating CO2 would “in itself, allow a carbon tax.” The question of whether one of EPA’s mandates is to treat CO2 as a regulated pollutant under the Clean Air Act is a wholly separate question from a carbon tax.
In fact, what allowing the EPA regulation of CO2 under the Clean Air Act provides is for the EPA to use standard regulatory techniques (what Republicans would call “command and control” methods) to tackle the greenhouse gas problem.
One might think that Republicans would be open to alternative methods, either in the form of a carbon tax (which economists agree is the most efficient method) or a cap-and-trade system that is ALREADY in place to tackle acid rain and was previously supported by Republicans as a market-friendly solution!
One might think that, but when one realizes that the Republicans would rather close their eyes to the problem of climate change altogether, their resistance to any attempts to curb the problem makes more sense.
That, once you arrive at the position that climate change is not a hoax, that a carbon tax is the single best way to confront the problem using the power of the market. That is because the tax, by slowly increasing the cost of fossil fuel energy, slowly encourages investment in non-fossil fuel energy, without requiring the government to choose which alternative will receive investment by way of subsidy or tax break.
There was a time that Republicans actually wanted to use market forces to improve things.
Al Gore becomes a billionaire, so he can live high off the hog. Many Democrats who have left office, are deep into alternative energies, just ask Harry Reid’s son. Professor Warren said $2K in higher taxes is hammering the middle class, but if the money goes directly to liberal Dems and their carbon scheme, well that’s okay?
I hate to say this, but many Dems just want people to be poor, live poor, have no kids, so they emit less carbon, in order to save earth from “climate change”. Nah, we come this way only once, let’s enjoy life.
As CMD has observed, unless you assert that climate change is a hoax, the position you advocate is murderous negligence.
First, a cap-and-trade system that Republicans have already rejected;
Second, command-and-control regulations issued by the EPA that are rightly criticized as a poor solution to the problem — particularly since the current structure of the Clean Air Act was not originally designed to deal with greenhouse gases like CO2; or
Third, climate change denialism.
Please let me know which of these alternatives is better than a carbon tax.
And pretending problems don’t exist is conservative? Conservative of what, exactly?
So, yes, I do support a gradual increase in fossil fuel energy costs. The remainder of the comment is conspiracy theory nonsense.
And it is hard to imagine a less conservative statement than:
That isn’t conservatism, it is libertinism.
but how many people are out of work. The Government keeps a tally of unemployed workers called the “U-6″ rate which counts people out of work not collecting unemployment checks.
That number looks like this…
The real number isn’t the one that makes the guy I’m against look better – it’s the one that makes him look worse! Yeah!
Nobody is spinning the jobs report in a favorable way, except perhaps MSNBC. Johnd is right and we are not gleeful about this, because anyone working in the private sector is fully aware we could be just another bump in the road to this administration.
Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you are. If we’d had an awesome jobs number today, you guys would all be down in the dumps. The Republican record of rooting for failure is one of the most appalling developments of the last 4 years, all stemming from Mitch McConnell & Co.’s decision that the most important thing they could do was to deny Obama a 2nd term rather than help the American people. Talk about un-American.
No one is “rooting for failure” of the economy. We’re rooting for failure of Obama’s re-election since many people cannot see what he has proposed that will improve the economy.
He has no plan. He spoke of no plan at the convention.
Besides the lame promise of “100,000 new teachers,” which is empty rhetoric, he has put forth no plan.
The country is exhausted with 8% unemployment. It’s killing family incomes. Obama has had 4 years to focus on this, and has not.
Sorry, Shep, but that’s just not true. Your team wants nothing more than a string of bad numbers from now through November.
Besides, your perception is only opinion. I’m not gleeful, and I want the bad numbers to stop.
Your side is missing the big picture about the economy. We’re going backwards.
This just reported on Bloomberg….368,000 out of work people dropped off the unemployment rolls/looking for work category.
link
As for what your team wants, I’m afraid I just don’t believe you. Sorry, but the contrary evidence is overwhelming.
Romney’s plan is nonexistent. Cutting taxes won’t create jobs and drastically cutting spending will cost jobs for sure. The only Romney plan that might create some jobs is his suggestion that we should actually increase our defense spending (despite the fact that we already pay more than the rest of the world combined on defense).
At least on our current track we are making a slow but steady recovery from Recession. The Republican’s “plan” — to the extent that it actually exists — will either drive us back into Recession or will blow up the debt even more than they did under Reagan and Bush.
First of all, Romney won’t make us live like we are energy poor like Obama, Mitt will unleash our energy production I oil, gas, nuclear, and even COAL! get the EPA off the backs of the coal industry and end the crapola with billins to the Solyndra’s of the world. He would allow kids trapped in failing schools to receive vouchers so they can compete with privately educated kids like the Obama’s. Stand up, not bow predatory trade practices conducted by China. Cap federal spending, cut 5% non-defense spending, reform and simplify the tax code, repatriate trillions of dollars overseas, entitlement reform, and so much more. Oh and my favorite, no more kowtowing to union bosses.
Now, you mentioned Reagan. Just a fact. Taking out social security taxes, the government received more tax revenue after the tax cuts were imposed, than before. And if you grew up in the 80′s, you would know jobs were created left and right, teenagers had summer and after school jobs at their beck and call. Today, those are jobs Obama is creating, while we shed good paying, middle class jobs.
The Obama/progressive prescription for robust job creations is to:
(1) increase taxes on the “wealthy” (code for ($250,000 and up)
(2) Have the government spend more
Am I getting this right
And put more stress on local governments with unsustainable diamond-studded benefits. Does not Obama know that the future in online teaching and it’s FREE!!!!!! Older kids will be able to learn from their bedroom and at their own pace, not in a classroom.
Yeah right.
I can see you know very little about either education or the internet.
Online education is still in its infancy and doesn’t really hold a candle to interacting with real people. It really only works with people who have already developed excellent study and work habits, which most students sadly lack. It also only works with people who have up-to-date computers and a good internet connection. High speed internet access is neither cheap nor universally available.
I did think it was amusing that they seemed to make a big deal about the importance of a good education in the Republican convention but didn’t talk about any policies that would help.
NOTHING on the internet it free (at least, “free” as in “free beer”).
Every pixel on every screen costs money to put in front of you, money that somebody pays. The question you should be asking is “who paid for these pixels, and why?”
I’d rather mine receive an education. Over the past week this has descended into pure asshattery.
Already taking advantage, many of their classes are a breeze b/c they already learned the subject. School is more for socialization.
What you’re proposing has worked in Ayn Rand novels. Somewhere else?
I need look no further than the foolish debt ceiling standoff from last summer.
Of course the lack of specific “plans” from both conventions (Sorry, “we need jobs and lots of them does not a plan make) is largely because there is little that the government can do, because the entire recession is the product of a burst credit bubble, the effects of which necessarily take years to dissipate.
And it seems a little odd to contend, on the one hand, that the country is exhausted with 8% unemployment, while simultaneously arguing that it REALLY should have been a few points higher after the auto industry imploded.
… a plan.
Also remember that the teacher rhetoric is not empty – a decent amount of the jobs bleeding are from the public sector. This is the recovery that austerity-minded-I-suddenly-care-about-deficits-now-that-a-Democrat-is-in-office GOP wanted. Bringing those jobs back is not empty with regard to the overall job picture. Their loss is a significant chunk of overall unemployment.
Senator McConnell has been explicitly rooting for failure.
Of Obama, not the economy.
.
For a number of months now, I’ve been looking at labor participation rate graphs. Krugman just today put one up on his blog, but they pop up on a number of sites. And yes, what you see on this charts, just like the one johnd has posted, is that labor participation took a huge hit as part of the recession and thereafter it’s wiggled around the same number about 8% below what it was. Pretty bad.
*
The tragedy of political campaigns is that they have to deal in easily digestible truths and sometimes truth is more complicated than that. The stimulus bill of 2009 did save a lot of jobs. The auto bailout too — as is pointed out, it didn’t just save auto companies but parts companies and factories of non-American auto makers who rely on those parts companies. Unfortunately, arguing about the stimulus bill is like arguing against a counter-factual. We cannot visit the world in which McCain won the Presidency and vetoed the stimulus bill.
The other side of it though was that Obama asked for too small a stimulus. He got a smaller one and expressed satisfaction with it. When its inadequacy was obvious in 2010, there was no means of asking for more.
What’s even clearer though is that the Republicans are advocating policies actually already being instituted by Congress — and more aggressively pursued by Britain’s Conservative-led coalition. Those policies have manifestly failed.
Republicans complain we are not recovering fast enough.
In Britain, they aren’t even recovering anymore. Not even slowly. They are losing ground.
That’s what the GOP offers us. Cameron’s failures for the US.
This is reflected by the workplace participation number which has hit the lowest percentage since the Carter administration, i.e., not good.
8% unemployment, or worse, for 4 years is not good.
150,000 per month is treading water, the figure needed to maintain employment with new labor market entrants.
The sense of hurt in the workforce is high, which one should be able to discern by U6 and other measures of labor force drop out.
cut taxes for the rich! A truly sad example of the underpants gnomes theory of economics.
Even Obama has said that raising taxes in a recession is a bad idea, no? Why advocate it now, just as growth is weakening?
If you DO THE MATH, the general idea is to lower marginal rates all around, and remove many of the 1,567 pages in the IRC, remove tax preferences for businesses as well as for individuals. The operative word is marginal. Not “effective” but marginal.
You can raise taxes on the “wealthy” (which Obama defines as above $250,000) to 75% and you wouldn’t be able to retire 5% of the existing national debt so why even go there?
And jobs will magically appear! YAY!!
Seriously, if Romney would actually tell us what his plan is, it would be a lot easier to evaluate. Here’s an awesome video of a Fox News – Fox News! – anchor getting totally frustrated with Romney’s policy director’s steadfast refusal to explain what Romney actually wants to do.
When you start relying on Fox for your argument, it’s clear you’ve lost it. Take the rest of the day off.
Raising taxes does not promote economic growth. Lower taxes help. We need growth right now, and raising taxes anywhere is counterproductive.
Cutting taxes for the John Kerry’s of the world won’t necessarily create jobs, but increasing taxes will kill them.
Why are you advocating putting sand in the US economy’s gas tank? Why is Obama advocating this?
Raising taxes, generally, does not promote economic growth. Raising certain taxes–such as is actually proposed– has little impact one way or the other, short term, but does help the long term debt issue.
So I guess that it seems to me that your 3rd paragraph, crucial to your position, lacks evidentiary support.
“Raising taxes, generally, does not promote economic growth.” I think you are the very first BMGer to say this.
By extension, then, isn’t my 3rd paragraph true?
The truth of what you say depends on what others said? I don’t follow.
Regardless of who said what, it is certainly true, today, that a high-income tax cut would have no effect on job growth. That is because the recession results from a credit bubble. The slow recovery is because there remains a debt hangover. Any tax “savings” will be used to deleverage, and therefore will not have a stimulus effect at all. So, why is it that we would trade more government debt–thus making a long term problem worse– for an accelerated deleveraging in the private sector? We wouldn’t, as this would make the government budget worse, while doing nothing to improve the economy.
It is as if Republicans have a simplistic understanding of the Laffer curve, but no conception of where we ARE on the curve at any given time. They just pretend that it is an even tradeoff, which is bogus. It is almost as if they don’t understand the difference between a curve and a line.
where do i sign up
CMD, raising taxes ANYWHERE, in any fashion, by definition, will reduce growth and hinder job creation. Taxes increase the cost of labor and capital, therefore you get less labor and capital. And you retard economic growth.
You cannot categorically claim “tax “savings” (scare quotes are yours) will be used 100% by the taxpayer to de-lever. The private sector is already de-levering and has de-levered, without any “tax savings.”
“Tax savings” would also increase private investment, private savings, and consumer spending all of which are stimulative and promote long-term growth.
Progressives prefer these “tax savings” were not returned to taxpayers but instead used as government spending. I believe it’s way more economically efficient to let the private sector keep their money.
Government indebtedness is ALWAYS a function of government spending. No so in the private sector where debt is predominately a financing alternative, both in business (leasing, capital purchases, etc.) and for individuals (home mortgages, consumer credit, etc.)
As for the Laffer Curve, which I know is curved, I contend we’re operating above the most efficient tax receipt point, where higher tax rates do not effectively increase tax receipts but instead hurt economic growth. I have heard (no cites sorry) the estimates of the max point to be something around 14% to 18%
You should take your own advice and stop thinking of the Laffer Curve as a line, a horizontal line.
“CMD, raising taxes ANYWHERE, in any fashion, by definition, will reduce growth and hinder job creation.”
The underlying assumption here is absurd – that every dollar in the economy is always functioning toward job creation and growth – that nobody every has dollars in their pocket that they are not using toward making jobs – that everybody with money is always a job maker at every point in time – that there is literally nobody who ever just hoards wealth – that all wealth creates jobs – that the only way wealth ever makes progress toward job creation is when it is used by private entities rather than public ones.
The “Laffer Curve” is discredited hogwash. Among its many faults, it relies on an assumption that governments must maintain a balanced budget. When that constraint is removed, the flimsy mathematical basis of the premise collapses entirely.
This comment is, like the Laffer Curve itself, utter hogwash.
You might find it helpful to have an actual argument.
to understand the liberal position before offering criticisms of it.
This is not necessarily true, especially if you take at face value the rhetoric from Republicans and others that the prospect of massive debts into the future hurts the current economy. If the debt is reduced, even a relatively small amount, through allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire for a small segment of society, that could ease debt fears and have a positive effect on the economy.
More importantly, though, the resistance to raising tax rates for the rich is just one example that Republicans are simply not serious about debt reduction. For example, see their absurd demands for increased spending on defense spending the Pentagon doesn’t want. Another is their opposition to the $716 billion in cuts in Medicare spending in the Affordable Care Act so they can use the cuts to scare the elderly to the polls.
Oh, and the plain evidence that Republican Administrations from Reagan on don’t care about reducing the national debt once they are actually in office.
but they don’t disprove the rule: raising taxes hurt economic growth. It’s tax policy we’re talking about, not social policy. How do we increase, maximize, tax receipts?
Not by raising taxes, but by increasing growth. All I hear from progressives is “Tax the Rich.” Where are the “Please Grow the Economy” signs?
BTW, why wouldn’t the $716 billion transfer from Medicare to ACA NOT scare the bejesus out of the elderly?
There goes the conversational drift again… I thought we were talking about jobs? Or maybe we’re talking about jobs in the GOP sense (really we’re talking about women).
Are we talking about jobs?
Are you saying that increasing taxes so the government can make transfer payments is job stimulus?
… jobs can’t or shouldn’t be addressed without addressing debt. You’re talking about ‘do the math’ and bringing in tax cuts as if that’s the formula. Then you bring in the debt. The topic is jobs. David’s alleged “Tourette’s” (a truly ironic use of the term given that the tourette’s in the dialogue is that tax cuts is a response we hear repeatedly no matter what the subject – somehow pointing that out the tourette’s is tourette’s – yeah right) was with regard to convenient notion that the solutions for today’s problem seems to be the same as for yesterdays and the day before and 1964 and 2057.
The problem is, and has been, demand.
(Wow. This is the 2nd cartoon pasted today in defense of a progressive shibboleth.)
You’re implying that the government should tax the wealthy then transfer the money to folks so they can spend it, and that will create jobs?
Is that fair to say? Do I have this right, mr-lynne?
Republicans used to know this until Norquist miseducated them. Short term borrowing would be good. Also, tax increases on the upper tiers to help pay for it would be good as well. After all, all the extra income and profits aren’t translating to jobs anyway.
is to borrow short and lend long…unless interest rates are rising…which they are not.
Although maybe it doesn’t matter because we have no plans on how to pay back either short term or long term.
Empirically we have seen that TARP was not stimulative. Neither have QE1 or 2 have done much (some contend they’ve hurt the economy, ruined the Fed’s balance sheet, and set us up for price inflation.)
Empirically we have seen where lowering marginal tax rates, removing/simplifying tax preferences, and broadening the tax base promotes economic growth. (See: Kennedy, Reagan administrations.)
All I hear from progressives is that it’s better to have the government spend the money instead people and businesses spending their money.
It’s higher taxes & more government spending versus lower, flatter rates and more private spending and investment.
This is the second cartoon posted mocking the regressive poutrage.
Why did the unemployment rate go down?
What about “we had the best economy ever starting in 1995 and going to 2001, when we had both houses of Congress Republican and a Democratic President”
You should be rooting for Brown to get in to get us to a Republican Senate, as Obama is winning for sure.
All in all a pointless post, but when it’s your blog you’re entitled to do what you want.
I absolutely agree that this period seemed to produce a lot of good results, but that was because there was at that time actual bipartisan input into things. I cannot see that happening with the present Republican caucus.
Of course, having a tech bubble to drive growth never hurts either.
I do agree that polarization has gotten so out of hand that bipartisan consensus now seems impossible. It’s remarkable that we can look back to the days in which a partisan bomb-thrower dominated Congress (Newt Gingrich) as presenting more opportunities for cooperation than we have today.
Even though they were the darlings of the press, the “dotcoms” forming a bubble just weren’t that big a share of the economy. They just weren’t. It probably is true that the taxation of bubble-generated capital gains played a role in getting the government budgets into surplus, but again, it wasn’t the only significant factor.
I think it is more likely that investment by ordinary business–not Kozmo.com– into computer technology allowed big increases in productivity, and thus low unemployment and low inflation. Nirvana. A lot of that initial investment came about because there were fewer T-bills to buy.
Contrast the 2000′s bubble, which was a credit bubble, and thus screwed the entire economy.
… boom that often get’s overlooked with regard to economic growth – productivity. In the 80′s analysts were heralding the days when the business PC as a productivity enhancer would show up in productivity gains in the real economy. There were years and years and years of frustration as those who had predicted it lamented that the effect wasn’t showing up in their analysis of overall productivity. As I recall (I don’t have any cites right now – this is from memory) the effect finally started showing up around the mid-90′s. I don’t recall the particular numbers, but technology’s effect on overall productivity was significant even if you disregard the growth of actual tech sector itself. I’m not sure the status of the particulars these days though.
I can’t find the cite, but I recall the productivity gains were, over the 10 or 12 years when the internet was emerging, an order of magnitude. Not 10%, but 100% (compounded.)
Harry Reid’s Senate.
…labor force participation:
Personally, its news to me that the Bureau of Labor Statistics actually keeps track of “…how many of the workers are out of the labor force because they’re discouraged about being unable to find work.”
so I cannot see what data set the WP refers to. However this data series from the St. Louis Fed shows a clearer, long-term picture.
My take is that we are in very bad times, especially since we are out of the recession (the shaded areas.)
That is the historical record from the past fours years.
Republicans like Scott Brown destroy jobs, Democrats create them. That’s reality, and it is notable that none of our differently winged contributors addressed the facts in my post. They couldn’t, because the reality is that if Scott Brown is elected, and the Republican Party has more power, history shows that there will be fewer jobs in Massachusetts than if Elizabeth Warren is elected and the Democrats have more power.
It was Obama who promised hire wages, not minimum wage like jobs that he has been generating, more than half actually. Obama promised to cut the deficit in half, yet he blew it all sky high. New business startups at a 30 year low. It w as Obama who promised us that the unemployment would be at 5.4% by this time in his first term. It wasn’t Scott Brown or Mitch McConnell or johnd who set this goal. It was Obama himself.
You know what happens when you write a check your ass can’t cover. Well, Obama has written $6 trillion worth and they are beginning to bounce.
It’s hilarious to see the degree to which the term “non-responsive answer” can be brought to life over and over again in efforts to refute the hard facts of my post.
Scott Brown and his Republican party = more unemployment.
Elizabeth Warren and her Democrats = more jobs.
That is the record of US history since 2008.
Clinton’s economic boom had six years of Republican controlled House and Senate. If you were honest, you would realize this is the correct formula.
Cheap oil prices = more jobs
High oil prices = less jobs
dfw thinks online education is all anyone needs. This seems to be the result of his hire education:
Over time Democrats will create more jobs, and in comparable points in a business cycle they will also create more jobs than Republicans (at least than the modern destroy government and cut taxes kind of Republicans). But in the short run, a politician who happened to get elected at the start of a business cycle would see employment increase. The Republican, however, would achieve more meager results than a Democrat in a comparable position.
By creating the maximum business uncertainty with a series of political stunts as we have seen the Republicans do so effectively for the last two years.
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