The United States economy shed 190,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate reached a 26-year high of 10.2 percent, up from 9.8 percent in September, the Department of Labor said Friday in its monthly economic appraisal.
Breaking 10% crosses a psychological barrier. That 3.5% GDP growth we had last quarter doesn’t seem that great when so many are unemployed.
Republicans have to walk the fine line of using these numbers to hit Obama while simultaneously not gloating in the fact that millions of Americans are out of work. If anything Republicans don’t have to do much work, the rising unemployment rate speaks for itself and provides plenty of fuel to the argument that the incumbent party needs to go.
I would certainly hope that after 9 months in office, and only 6 months after initiating a range of stimulus iniatives, that a rising unemployment rate isn’t a serious argument that “Obama needs to go.” The current rise in unemployment is discretely linked to the collapse of the financial and housing markets – neither of which started/happened on Obama’s watch or were a result of his policies or lack there of.
Ignoring such facts sheds great sunshine on the motivations behind such calls and rhetoric. A return to GOP leadership policies, which are the ones that bred our current state of affairs across 2000-2008, certainly can’t be seen as solutions to the very same problems they created. Such reasoning almost sounds…hmmm…”un American”, no?
Check out ConnScript’s post about where we are supposed to be right now. Obama said below 8%. So…
Oh, I see – so since Obama’s hasn’t reversed unemployment to the extent he promised and on the exact timeline he proposed, it’s time to elect a Republican President and return to GOP policies that led to the unemployment in the first place. Perfect – let’s do it…..you wanted Ailes, right? He seems to have the exact combination of skills and attributes we need to reverse systemic unemployment – I can hardly wait for things to turn around! Let’s give those Reagan and Bush Sr. ideas he helped usher into office another try – I don’t see whay they wouldn’t work, do you?
Uh…he hasn’t reversed unemployment at all. He’s going exactly the wrong direction, in fact.
To paraphrase your point: “Don’t blame Obama for not doing what he promised.” Is that right?
And no, I didn’t say I wanted Ailes. I said I was intrigued by the possibility of his candidacy. I’m firmly a Romney guy for the time being. I’d much rather have him in office right now than a President who is learning on the job at our country’s expense.
Well, you mean Romney minus all that socialized healthcare stuff, right?
No, my point, paraphrased would be more like, “Stop ignoring the real policies, people, and reasons for the problem you’re so quick to bash Obama for.” or “Obsessive finger pointing and games of “gotcha” with the administration doesn’t help reverse unemployment.”
In short, I don’t believe you care any more about presidents nailing promises and timelines any more than you do about the sanctity and triumphant importance of marriage definitions. In both cases, the dogged passion and attention is a distraction from the real issues.
I care tremendously about spending our country into the ground with a plan that wasn’t going to work from the outset and is being proven as a waste right now. How you can defend Obama when the stimulus package is doing exactly the opposite of what it was supposed to defies logic. And to say that unemployment isn’t a “real issue” goes beyond naivety to sheer stupidity.
If you want to whine about finger-pointing, start at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. where the primary resident is still content blaming the last guy.
I never said unemployment wasn’t a real issue. What isn’t a real issue is your partisan attacks on Obama commitments and policies. If you cared about unemployment, you’d be angry and riled up about the 8 yrs of policies that have driven it, not angry and riled up over Obama not delivering on all his promises. It’s clear that the stimulus hasn’t done enough – but we’d be far worse off had it not been implemented…and, it was the GOP who claimed, when he devised it, that it was too rich – not that it was too weak or too little to be effective.
This is why the Democrats are going to lose next year and in 2012 – so I won’t try too hard to dissuade you.
Krauthammer had a great article on the subject, originally written for WaPo. You should read it.