Obama Lies About Labor Numbers

In Mark Halperin's "The Page" political blog at Time.com, he relays a message from Team Obama that criticizes John McCain's trip to Latin America and attempts to directly tie McCain's stance on free trade to rising unemployment numbers. While many others have joined in the criticism of the timing of this particular trip, it does serve to highlight the fact that John McCain is for free trade, while Barack Obama is not - and gives McCain an opportunity to prove the "free trade = unemployment" argument wrong. Halperin attempted to link to the memo from Obama that contained the anti-free trade argument, but instead links to another unrelated post - so we aren't able to read the memo in full. He did, however, relay a quote from it:

Says his trip illustrates he’ll continue Bush’s “failed economic policies that have left nearly 2.5 million more workers unemployed—including unfair trade deals that have been written by lobbyists.”

The Senator from Illinois is attempting two things. The most obvious is to blame free trade for the job loss. But a strong second is to leave the impression that the United States, in total, has 2.5 million fewer jobs nationwide since the beginning of Bush's Presidency. We'll leave the refutation of Obama's anti-free trade argument for another day, but the idea that Bush is responsible for a net job loss must be addressed now. Because, in fact, it is just another one of Barack Obama's bald-faced lies.

Obama must really believe (and be dependent on) the liberal assumption that the American public is either too lazy or too stupid to find out the truth for themselves. The Obama-friendly media will never say anything that contradicts Obama's carefully crafted image and message unless they're forced to. But for the majority of Americans out there who are neither stupid nor lazy, it's easy to not only refute Obama's labor numbers and insinuation, but also discover information that turns Obama's lie back on the candidate and the Democrats. To do so, they simply have to go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, where I assume Obama got his numbers. There we find the unemployment number that the candidate uses (actually it isn't 2.5 million, it's 2.464 million), but also other, more important numbers that blow Obama's arguments and inferences out of the water.

First, Obama's numbers. The national unemployment figure in January 2001 (when Bush took office) was 6,023,000. The latest national unemployment figure from May 2008 (subject to revision) was 8,487,000. That means that there are approximately 2.5 million more people unemployed in May of this year than there were at the beginning of the Bush Presidency.

But Obama, for reasons that will soon become obvious, stops using the labor numbers there. Why? Because if you go on to look at employment numbers, it refutes Obama's points.

In January of 2001 there were 137,778,000 people employed in the United States. In May of 2008, there were 146,046,000 employed nationally. That's an overall increase in jobs of 8,268,000! So there might be more unemployed people today, but there's also over three times as many people in new jobs. And when you really take a look at the data, you also find out something interesting about the unemployment numbers that Obama so gleefully throws around. In December of 2006, the last month that the Republicans controlled Congress, there were 6,760,000 people unemployed in the United States. In May of 2008, there were 8,487,000 people unemployed.

That's right, the majority of unemployed became unemployed while the Democrats were in control of Congress, and while President Bush was described by the Democrats and their minions in the media repeatedly as a "lame duck" - unable (and prevented by the Dems) to do anything good or bad, especially on the domestic front. Remember, in 2007 the Democrats were finally in charge - and things were going to "change". Which is, oddly, the same message that Obama uses today.

Let's look at the "change" the Democrats gave us. In January 2001 there were 6,023,000 people unemployed. In December of 2006 (the last month of a Republican-controlled Congress), there were 6,760,000 out of work. That's an increase of only 737,000 people over 72 months. During that same period, total employment went from 137,778,000 to 145,949,000. That's an increase of 8,171,000 jobs. An increase of 737K in the number of unemployed, versus an increase in the number of jobs across America of almost 8.2 million. Weighing unemployment against new job creation, that's not a bad economic record.

Now let's look at the picture since Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats took over Congress. When the GOP left majority status in December of 2006, the number of unemployed stood at 6,760,000. In May of 2008 that number was 8,487,000. That's an increase in the number of people unemployed of 1,727,000 - in just 17 months. In December of 2006, total employment stood at 145,949,000. In May of 2008, that number stood at 146,046,000. That's an increase of only 97,000 jobs during the same time period.

To reiterate, the Bush Administration, during the 72 months that the Republicans were in control of the federal purse-strings and the legislative agenda, saw unemployment numbers increase by 737 thousand. At the same time they created nearly 8.2 million new jobs. In the seventeen months since the Democrats, including Obama, have controlled both the federal purse-strings and the country's legislative agenda, over 1.75 million individuals have lost their jobs. And during that same period of time, Democrats created an abysmal 97 thousand new jobs.

In other words, under the Democrats' short watch there has been over 18 jobs lost for every job created. When the GOP was in control, there were .09 jobs lost for every job created. Those figures are absolutely stunning. What's been the proposed solution? What's been the response of Barack Obama and the Democrats to the train-wreck that they've turned the economy into in 17 months? Beg for extended unemployment benefits and try, with their media allies, to blame their own failings on President Bush.

These numbers raise an interesting question that someone should ask Obama about. The only "victory" that Bush has had with this Democratic Congress has been to prevent them from surrendering in Iraq. On the other hand, the Democrats have successfully blocked the President from enacting anything to address the current economic conditions. It's almost as if the Democrats want the country to go down the tubes. Keeping in mind the success of the surge in Iraq despite overwhelming Democratic opposition (which included Obama), doesn't it make you wonder what would be happening with the economy today if some of Bush's economic proposals, such as the extension of the tax cuts and more drilling for oil, had been passed over the last 17 months?

Although the media will try to hide it, you can't have any starker evidence of the difference between the GOP running the economy versus the Democrats running the economy. Voters should start questioning if more unemployment, less job creation, and a destroyed domestic economy is the "change" they really want.