We all know the GOP has been lying since (at least) Obama took office. While I hate to generalize, it’s safe to say that professional conservatives (not your neighbor down the block, unless you live on John Boehner’s street) have no problem twisting and turning the truth if it suits their purposes. In fact, I have often said that there must be a mandatory Republican conference call every morning to make sure they all get their lies and talking points straight.
For instance, here’s Rachel Maddow on Monday explaining why Marco Rubio is lying (she’s more eloquent, but I have no problem stating facts) when he says the economy is getting “worse,” under Obama.
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Now, here’s MaddowBlog’s Steve Benen’s response to Mitt Romney, who says the economy is getting “worse,” under Obama. (By the way, I’m a huge Steve Benen fan — he is one of the more under-acknowledged political writers, and was a go-to daily when he was at the Washington Monthly. I’m glad he’s getting the recognition he deserves.)
Funny how they all say the same thing. Fortunately, our response can be the same, too. Here are Bennen’ charts proving his point, that the economy is getting better.
Here’s a chart, for example, showing private-sector job totals by month since the start of the Great Recession, with red columns showing the months when George W. Bush was president and the blue columns showing the Obama era.
And here’s a chart showing private-sector job totals by month over the last two decades.
And here’s a chart showing economic growth by quarter since the start of the recession.
And here’s a chart showing the Dow Jones Industrial Average since Obama took office.
Oh, and if you on’t believe it – unemployment dropped today to 8.3%. Huge drop. And while unemployment is still far too high, it is getting better. Not, “worse.”
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Ha ha ha – this just goes to show you how anyone can make a chart to convince people of anything. Yeah, under Obama we have seen 23 straight months of job growth. Forget that it's practically impossible to tie that growth to Obama – let's just assume that this was all due to Obama's policies for arguments sake – this "amazing growth" only made up for a small fraction of the job losses that were occurring during the first year and change that Obama was in office. Unemployment DID top out at over 10% and it took almost 2 years to bring it down by 15%. At that rate, Obama doesn't need 4 more years, he needs to be re-elected over and over and over again!
Here is a MUCH more fair assessment of the situation: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/po…
And in that article you can see the RELEVANT chart – the one that shows actual unemployment, the unemployment trend that Obama promised, and the unemployment trend that Obama said would occur if he didn't get the stimulus.
So on the one hand, you could say that Obama made things "worse" because unemployment under his watch was MUCH higher than what he said would happen if he didn't get his way. But quite honestly, I don't really think that the term "worse" is really 100% fair. More accurately, Obama over-promised and vastly under-delivered. When a CEO does that in the private sector, they don't really say that his policies made the company "worse", but they do get rid of the ineffective CEO and find someone new. So I guess saying that Obama failed to do what he promised to do and what he should have done is more accurate. In any case, Maddow is a complete idiot if she honestly thinks that Obama's economic track record is some kind of feather in his cap.
Dan,
Your comments astound me. Here's why:
1. I don't think you understand what worse means either, it would mean that the state of the economy would have to be in a greater net negative condition now then when he came in. This is obviously not the fact. Everyone who says it is "worse" (including your "on the one hand") is obviously lying or in gross disconnect with data.
2. Unable to show that Maddow or this article is wrong, you try a distraction tactic, you stop talking about the reality of then and now and begin talking in purely hypothetical what ifs based on targets and assessments (best case scenarios). Trouble is no one can actually know for certain how things would have been without the stimulus (more on that below) but non of that detracts from the innate truth that things are in fact, by all accounts "BETTER NOW COMPARED TO THEN".
3. A reasonable conclusion to draw from the graphs by Klein is that the initial projections underestimated the severity of the Recession (because projects are just projections and this was far from a typical eventin terms of severity based on all economic data). Instead you assume, seemingly that the projections were wrong while still ignoring that being wrong means that the worst case scenario they were expecting was wrong too. We are in a better position now and everything would logically suggest that we would be in a far worse position were it not for the way things were handled. You cannot reasonably harp on the projections being wrong and then ignore "how" they were wrong by being too optomistic and underestimating the severity, just as you cannot truthfully say that things are "worse" now.
4. Do you notice how not once in Klein's article does he claim things are worse (even though is article is older and not even caught up to current indicators). That's because it is ludicrous to make such a claim. Just as it would be ludicrous to ignore the pre-Obama data that show's he came into a worsening situation and undeniably has presided over an upward-positive trend. Don't be so partisan to pretend that a national economy should recover completely after the great recession immediately nor to pretend that the indicator suggest anything other than positive prospects along the current path.
Unemployment was at 7% and change when Obama took office. Now it is 8.5%, and that is with a ton of people who are no longer considered "unemployed" because they stopped looking for a job and just gave up. So using that metric, it is "worse."
But that's not my point at all, and I wasn't trying to defend that comment. I did say that it is not 100% fair to use that term. More accurately, Obama just didn't deliver. He either failed or was completely ineffective. There is no point in making excuses about what could have or should have happened. This whole mantra on the left about how Republicans are all lying is old and tired, and really not true.
And my main point is that your collection of graphs simply paints this ridiculously rosy picture of how things have gotten "better", I suppose compared to when Obama took office. That, sir, is dishonest as well. No rational person who has recently walked down the streets of any urban area and talked to the folks could possibly believe that this country's economy is doing well. And your charts do not change this – it's just a silly way of presenting a ridiculous argument.
We'll be sure to contact you when we need a weatherman to tell us it's about to snow even though the thermometer says 70 degrees.
Facts are funny things — just because you "feel" they're wrong, doesn't make them wrong.
Pity that the GOP and Tea Party are living under the mistaken idea that their feelings supercede facts.
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