Just a month ago, when Bush was on Meet the Press, the issue of job creation was raised. Bush was optimistic.
Bush: I’m not suggesting the chart only shows the bad numbers, but how about the fact that we are now increasing jobs or the fact that unemployment is now down to 5.6 percent? There was a winter recession and unemployment went up, and now it’s heading in the right direction. The economic stimulus plan that I passed, or I asked the Congress to pass, and I worked with Congress to pass, is making a big difference.
Russert: But when you proposed your first tax cut in 2001, you said this was going to generate 800,000 new jobs. Your tax cut of 2003, create a million new jobs. That has not happened.
Bush: Well, it’s happening. It’s happening. And there is good momentum when it comes to the creation of new jobs.
How do I put this gently… no, there isn’t “good momentum”; no, it’s not “happening”; and no, the giant tax cut for the wealthy has not made “a big difference.”
As the AP reported this morning:
For the third straight month, America’s expanding economy failed to produce significant job growth, the Department of Labor reported this morning.
With the presidential campaign moving into high gear, the number of non-farm jobs increased by only 21,000 in February, well short of expectations for an increase of 125,000 jobs — dramatically short of the 200,00 to 300,000 per month job creation rate economists consider necessary to produce a recovery in the job market.
Let’s see, the Bush White House promised that the last round of needless tax cuts would create over 300,000 per month, starting last fall. So far, the numbers haven’t come anywhere close.
Two more quick points. First, as Atrios noted, not only were February’s numbers awful, but January’s employment report as been revised — downward.
Second, as MaxSpeak explained, today’s report indicated the job growth in government was also 21,000, which means there was “zero growth in the private sector,” which, as luck would have it, was the “blessed beneficiary of the glorious Bush tax cuts.”
For the White House, there may be a silver lining to today’s report. Maybe the controversy over Bush’s failure to create jobs will distract the media from the controversy over Bush’s exploitative campaign ads. Just a thought.