Political Ruminations

Chart of the Day: Trajectory of Unemployment Claims 2007-2012

Steven Benen explains:

In fact, the new figures are the best since April 2008, and even exceeded positive expectations.

The number of Americans who filed requests for jobless benefits fell by 6,000 last week to 357,000, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had projected claims would total 360,000, seasonally adjusted, in the week ended March 31. Claims from two weeks ago were revised up to

Despite last week's annual revisions, the same metrics still apply: wh363,000 from 359,000. The average of new-benefit applications over the past four weeks, meanwhile, dropped by 4,250 to 361,750.en jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it's considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape, and when the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are actually being created rather quickly.

And with that, here's the chart -- which reflects the revised, seasonably-adjusted data -- showing weekly, initial unemployment claims going back to the beginning of 2007. (Remember, unlike the monthly jobs chart, a lower number is good news.) For context, I've added an arrow to show the point at which President Obama's Recovery Act began spending money.

UPDATE

More good news on the economic front from The Washington Post:

Add Mark Zandi to the growing chorus of economists who believe that the U.S. is finally headed for a real turnaround. The chief economist for Moody’s Analytics just revised his outlook for 2012, and the biggest change to his forecast involves the unemployment rate. Back in January, Zandi predicted that the rate, which is currently at 8.3 percent, would stay above 8 percent through the end of the year. Now he says it “appears set to fall below 8 percent by year’s end” and believes it will fall below 7 percent by the end of 2013, as he explains in his latest note.

Morning Quote: Andrew Sullivan on President Obama’s Job Performance

“On the economy, the facts are these. When Obama took office, the United States was losing around 750,000 jobs a month. The last quarter of 2008 saw an annualized drop in growth approaching 9 percent. This was the most serious downturn since the 1930s, there was a real chance of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system, and unemployment and debt—lagging indicators—were about to soar even further. No fair person can blame Obama for the wreckage of the next 12 months, as the financial crisis cut a swath through employment. Economies take time to shift course.

But Obama did several things at once: he continued the bank bailout begun by George W. Bush, he initiated a bailout of the auto industry, and he worked to pass a huge stimulus package of $787 billion.

 

All these decisions deserve scrutiny. And in retrospect, they were far more successful than anyone has yet fully given Obama the credit for. The job collapse bottomed out at the beginning of 2010, as the stimulus took effect. Since then, the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs. That’s not enough, but it’s far better than what Romney would have you believe, and more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration. In 2011 alone, 1.9 million private-sector jobs were created, while a net 280,000 government jobs were lost. Overall government employment has declined 2.6 percent over the past 3 years. (That compares with a drop of 2.2 percent during the early years of the Reagan administration.) To listen to current Republican rhetoric about Obama’s big-government socialist ways, you would imagine that the reverse was true. It isn’t.

 

The right claims the stimulus failed because it didn’t bring unemployment down to 8 percent in its first year, as predicted by Obama’s transition economic team. Instead, it peaked at 10.2 percent. But the 8 percent prediction was made before Obama took office and was wrong solely because it relied on statistics that guessed the economy was only shrinking by around 4 percent, not 9. Remove that statistical miscalculation (made by government and private-sector economists alike) and the stimulus did exactly what it was supposed to do. It put a bottom under the free fall. It is not an exaggeration to say it prevented a spiral downward that could have led to the Second Great Depression.

You’d think, listening to the Republican debates, that Obama has raised taxes. Again, this is not true. Not only did he agree not to sunset the Bush tax cuts for his entire first term, he has aggressively lowered taxes on most Americans. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts, affecting 95 percent of taxpayers; he has cut the payroll tax, and recently had to fight to keep it cut against Republican opposition. His spending record is also far better than his predecessor’s. Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion. Under Obama’s budgets both past and projected, he will have added $1.4 trillion in two terms. Under Bush and the GOP, nondefense discretionary spending grew by twice as much as under Obama. Again: imagine Bush had been a Democrat and Obama a Republican. You could easily make the case that Obama has been far more fiscally conservative than his predecessor—except, of course, that Obama has had to govern under the worst recession since the 1930s, and Bush, after the 2001 downturn, governed in a period of moderate growth. It takes work to increase the debt in times of growth, as Bush did. It takes much more work to constrain the debt in the deep recession Bush bequeathed Obama.”

- Conservative-Independent, Andrew Sullivan, excerpted from a Newsweek cover story. The quoted portion of the article focuses on President Obama’s job performance in regards to the economy.

Debunking Right-Wing Memes

According to Rep. Paul Ryan and other Republicans such as Speaker Boehner, and House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, non-defense discretionary spending has increased by 80% under the Obama administration.

Except it hasn’t.

Politifact, emphasis mine:

An assortment of Republicans -- including speaker Speaker Boehner of Ohio and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia -- have used Ryan’s numbers to exaggerate spending increases since Obama took office Jan. 20, 2009.[……]

The White House budget office shows non-defense discretionary spending rose 26 percent from 2008 to 2010. The CBO, which Hurt and other Republicans cite as their source, puts the increase at 23.7 percent.
We rate his [Ryan, Hurt, et al] statement False.

Paul Krugman, emphasis mine:

It’s completely false. As anyone who knows how to read federal statistics should have known, the real number — including the stimulus — is 26 percent. And it’s now in the process of falling off.

The discretionary spending falsehood is a key part of the claim that Obama has presided over a vast expansion of government; as I’ve tried to explain, the only real area of rapid growth has been in safety net programs that spend more when there is high unemployment.

As a point of reference, Krugman’s initial post on this meme in May.

The Republican Party is absolutely unswerving in its slavish devotion to dissemination of lies and bigger lies in order to propagate a fascist agenda.

And they hate the black guy.

WHAT Job Losses Under the Obama Administration?

Job losses under President Obama? What job losses?

Rep. Tom Graves (R-GA), like many Republicans, seems to have both a lack of understanding that everything is documented on the internet, and a deeply stupid lack of awareness about which man was president when.

Well, what we've seen is massive job loss that began in about 2008, and I believe that was under Barack Obama.

Graph via Steve Benen

H/T Bob Cesca

Quote of the Week: Krauthammer on the Firebaggers & Obama

On Bill O’Reilly’s show on Tuesday, an unlikely source, in the form of Charles Krauthammer, pushed back on the “professional left” [Firebaggers], and said that Obama won the tax cut deal, just like it was an historic achievement that he got Obamacare passed, in spite of the bitter disappointment voiced by the Firebagger crowd. He also said that the “professional left” misunderstands” both Obama, and the magnitude of his achievements. I agree.

I think that this “professional left” misunderstands the president and what he's achieved in the same way that they totally underestimated and misunderstood his achievement in passing Obamacare, which from the point of view of the left, I think is historic.

Look, in the deal with McConnell over the tax cuts, Obama won. He just got the Republicans to agree to a near trillion dollar, 900 billion dollar stimulus. A second stimulus, all of it paid by Chinese money we borrow. None of it will be paid for, blowing a huge hole in the debt. And he did this with out even calling it a stimulus. And he does this, this is gonna  be 900 billion, almost all in tax cuts, some of it in unemployment benefits, which will be dispensed over the next 2 years, which just happen to be the 2 years in the run-up to Obama's reelection.

You gonna call that a defeat?

TRANSCRIPT: Details on Obama Tax Cut Plan

TRANSCRIPT

Fact Sheet on the Framework Agreement on Middle Class Tax Cuts and Unemployment Insurance

The framework agreement announced by the President secures vital tax relief and investments in our workers that will create jobs and accelerate economic growth. The plan has three key accomplishments:

• Working families will not lose their tax cut. A typical working family faced a tax increase of over $3,000 on January 1st. That’s avoided under this framework agreement, and working families won’t see their tax cuts go away next year.
• Focused on high impact job creation measures. The framework agreement includes some of the best measures for jumpstarting growth and job creation, including a full year of emergency unemployment insurance benefits, an about $120 billion payroll tax cut for working families and a continuation of tax credits for working families. This is on top of growth generated by extension of the middle-class income tax rates.

The View Allows Newt Gingrich to Spew Right Wing Memes Without Pushing Back

Dear Ladies of the View, if you don’t have the time to inform yourselves, stay the f—k out of politics, because you are not helping with the huge disconnect between reality and the Republican/Fox News memes.

This is what happened today on The View.

Joy Behar asked Newt Gingrich what he thinks of the fact that Obama has been getting so much criticism because people say that TARP failed, TARP was too big, the stimulus didn’t work, and so forth. Predictably, Gingrich repeats the ongoing right wing memes re TARP, etc., and not even ONE of the ladies calls him on it, presumably because they did not know any better.

For your information, Wingnut Gingrich, and Ladies of The View, the actual facts.

1. The stimulus was not a failure. Not only was it not a failure, but a huge number of Republicans had their hands out to grab the money while the "failure" word came flying out of their mouths at regular intervals, 114 of them took credit for the same stimulus that they voted against. Additionally, the stimulus cost $787 billion, not $1.2 trillion, created 3.3 million new jobs, and prevented an even deeper recession.

Yes, we know it wasn’t big enough. But hey, with the obstructive Republicans in both Houses, Obama was lucky to get even a relatively small stimulus through.

2. TARP, also known as the bailout of the Big banks, and initiated under George W. Bush in 2008, worked, and, not only did it work, but the government expects to break even. That means, for the slow people, that it won’t cost taxpayers a cent.

From the oversight committee, a grudging acknowledgement:

There is broad consensus that the TARP was an important part of a broader government strategy that stabilized the U.S. financial system by renewing the flow of credit and averting a more acute crisis. Although the government’s response to the crisis was at first haphazard and uncertain, it eventually proved decisive enough to stop the panic and restore market confidence.

Moving right along, Newt Gingrich spent his time laying out his memes, including the one where Sarah Palin writes her own Facebook posts. Not. And not even one of the ladies called him on it.

Whatever was said after I switched it off in rage, I hope someone else will take note.

8 False Tea Party-Republican Memes to Talk About Before You Go to the Polls

1. The Tea Party is a grass roots movement.

REALITY: The Tea Party is a rebranding effort by the Republican Party, led by the billionaire Koch Brothers and their organization, Americans for Prosperity. Read this report, and don't forget to look at this fabulous graphic, which is worth at least 10,000 words all by itself. The corporate takeover of our government is in process.

2. The stimulus was a failure.

REALITY: Not only was it not a failure, but a huge number of Republicans not only had their hands out to grab the money while the "failure" word came flying out of their mouths at regular intervals, 114 of them took credit for the same stimulus that they voted against. Additionally, the stimulus cost $787 billion, not $1.2 trillion, and created 3.3 million new jobs, and prevented an even deeper recession.

3. The President is a Muslim Kenyan Socialist who has never produced his birth certificate.

REALITY: The President is an American Christian centrist who produced his birth certificate for public display when this ridiculous meme first began during the 2008 election. Socialism requires a more left wing point of view, and this president is not even center left, much less far left.

4. Nowhere in the constitution does it state that there must be a separation between church and state.

REALITY: It is important to understand that this meme was not born out of ignorance, but out of a desire to intertwine religion and government, and thus the Far Right has re-interpreted the first two clauses in the First Amendment to be more to their liking. Constitutional scholars agree that these clauses denote the doctrine of the separation of church and state. Because our SCOTUS is Far Right, it is a dangerous meme.

5. The health care reform bill enacted by Democrats hurt Medicare and recipients of Medicare.

REALITY: Not only did it not harm the Medicare program, it actually strengthened it.

6. There is no difference between union funding of election ads and funding by secretive Super PACs.

REALITY: The difference between them is enormous. Union funding comes from the workers, the people who belong to the unions, and thus we know who is funding these ads. Secretive Super PACs, on the other hand, are funded by anyone, including in some cases foreign interests or multi-national companies, and no disclosure is required. There is also NO limit on donor contributions. Individuals funding union pacs are limited to specific, and low, dollar amounts, and there is disclosure.

These last two are from Dave Johnson, in his words.

7. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, and is "going broke".

REALITY: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8. President Obama tripled the deficit.
REALITY: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

Please re-blog this post, email it, and link to it. This stuff matters.

Links to Obama Administration / Democratic Party Accomplishments:

~ Rachel Maddow recounts what the Democrats accomplished in the past two years, and in the face of unrelenting opposition from the Republican Party. Maddow says that the Democrats, who controlled both Housees and the Presidency, were about policy, not politics.

~ Crowd-sourced on Twitter, a well sourced listing of the achievements of the Obama administration.

~ WTF has Obama done so far?.com

And finally, go VOTE!

President Obama's Stimulus Act Created 3.3 Million Jobs

Yes, where the economy is concerned, I am looking at the glass as half full [emphasis added]. Via The Washington Post:

President Obama's much-maligned economic stimulus package added as many as 3.3 million jobs to the economy during the second quarter of this year, and may have prevented the nation from lapsing back into recession, according to a report released Tuesday by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

In its latest quarterly assessment of the act, the CBO said the stimulus lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 and 1.8 percentage points during the quarter ending in June and increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million. The higher figure would come close to making good on Obama's pledge that the act would save or create as many as 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year.

The CBO said the act also increased the nation's gross domestic product by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent in the second quarter, indicating that the stimulus may have been the primary source of growth in the U.S. economy.

Time for another stimulus, the Republican house-burner-downers be damned.

ht Bob Cesca

Virginia's Governor McDonnell Credits Conservatives for the Budget Surplus Acquired Through the Obama Stimulus Plan

Some people have taken hypocrisy and made it an art. Republican Governor Bob McDonnell is one of those.

Loudly gloating about Virginia's budget surplus of $403.2 million during a speech to the legislature, he enumerated the factors contributing to said surplus, and during an appearance on Fox Business network, he continued to claim conservative principles as the reason for Virginia's surplus.

Well it took a lot of work and a lot of bipartisan support in both houses of the legislature but I think we took a very conservative, fiscal, practical approach to budget. You can’t spend what you don’t have.

The truth is another matter.

McDonnell’s “prudence” would be a shining example for the federal government if he hadn’t relied on one important contributor: the federal government. According to a Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis report released this week, last year’s Recovery Act provided $2.5 billion in stimulus relief to “maintain crucial services for [Virginia] citizens” and “help close the state’s budget shortfall in 2010-2012.” Virginia legislators relied on $1.3 billion in enhanced Medicaid funding, $1 billion in funding for K-12 and higher education, $39 million for public safety, and $200 million in general support to reduce “what would otherwise have been a $5.4 billion budget hole.”

Selective amnesia on the part of McDonnell? Indeed.

But McDonnell has a history of selective amnesia when it comes to Recovery funds. During his gubernatorial campaign, McDonnell continually criticized the Recovery Act as a “massive” spending bill that would “do little to help the economy.” But, while in office, McDonnell heralded $24 million in federal funding to advance health information technology while sweeping the fact that it was stimulus funding under the rug. He even requested stimulus funds to cover rising health care costs and to help build a Rolls Royce manufacturing plant in Prince George County. As one Virginia legislator put it, “we wouldn’t even be talking about the surplus if it weren’t for the stimulus.” 

From a comment on Think Progress:

Do the math:

started with 1.8 billion in the hole.

Add 2.5 billion from the fed stimulus.

Equals .7 billion in the black.

Ended with .4 billion in the black.

Fiscal responsibility and conservative principles somehow swallowed .3 billion!

Via Think Progress

Krugman to Obama: “Hey, Small Spender”

Krugman refutes the right wing mantra that goes “Obama is a big spender”.

One of the things everyone knows right now is that Obama has presided over a huge increase in government spending. But like so many of the things everyone knows, it isn’t true.

Bob Cesca:

Spending as a percentage of GDP is around 19 percent. It's midrange. Spending peaked in 1987, during the Reagan presidency, at around 21.5 percent.

Now can we pass more stimulus and create more damn jobs?! Of course, before that happens, Congress needs to unf-ck itself and realize that deficit reduction is really stupid (at this point).

More stimulus, please, Mr. President.

SUCK IT, Republicans!

Quote of the Day: Bob Cesca Talks Deficit Growth

Emphasis mine.

Fact: one way or another, whether the Democrats control Congress or whether it's the Republicans, the deficit will grow in the near term. Do we grow the deficit with stimulus that creates jobs and grows the economy? Or do we grow the deficit with $678 billion in tax cuts to the top two percent that does next-to-NOTHING to create jobs or stimulate the economy? ~ Bob Cesca

John Boehner is an Idiot

Just listen to him. Republican, John Boehner, is a blithering IDIOT. Just sayin'....

Well, I don’t need to see GDP numbers or to listen to economists. All I need to do is listen to the American people, because they’ve been asking the question now for 18 months, 'where are the jobs?'" John Boehner

Via Bob Cesca

Talking Points: A President who gets things done

This needs to be repeated, over and over, between now and November, as part of our mantra. Stuart Shapiro:

Earlier this week, Congress passed financial reform which will be signed by President Obama in the days ahead.  As Sheryl Gay Stolberg notes in the New York Times, this marks the third economy-wide statute that has been passed in a year and a half under Obama.

The financial regulatory bill is the final piece of a legislative hat trick that also included the stimulus bill and the landmark new health care law. Over the last 18 months, Mr. Obama and the Democratic Congress have made considerable inroads in passing what could be the most ambitious agenda in decades.

In a mere one-and-a-half years, Obama has pushed through Congress bills more far-reaching than any President since Nixon.  If he stopped now, his policy legacy would be the largest overall since Reagan and the largest domestically since Nixon or Johnson.

Hammer them with it.

Sabotage of an economic recovery: Republicans block extension of unemployment benefits.Again.

Via Bob Cesca:

I can't recall another example of the minority party deliberately sabotaging an economic recovery like this. They're blocking jobs-creation legislation, and they're blocking unemployment benefits for the people who have lost their jobs. They're dooming the economic recovery to be sucked under by the jobless issue.

And there appears to be nothing the president or the Democrats can do about it. Nothing. Not until the conservadems stop enabling the Republicans -- not until they stop being duped by the astroturf shrieking of the tea party anti-spending zealots. Congress is balking at any new spending because the screechers have spooked them into believing that people give a flying eff about the deficit.

Via The Hill:

The House failed Tuesday afternoon to pass an unemployment benefits extension under suspension of the rules. 

The bill failed to gain the two-thirds needed — 261-155 — with 30 Republicans voting in support while 16 Democrats opposed the legislation.

The House willl try again with a simple majority vote on Wednesday, as the $33 billion six-month extension will now head to the House Rules Committee.

Rules is expected to approve a rule for consideration tonight, which would set up the legislation for floor consideration Wednesday. That vote won't require two-thirds support for passage.

Even if the House passes the measure, however, there's doubt the Senate has the votes to approve it before leaving for the July 4 break.

Personally, I wonder just how far Republicans are willing to go in order to regain power.

UPDATE: In the Senate, Republicans blocked a measure to provide additional benefits to homeless veterans.