Bush’s week from hell just got a little worse.
Companies added 96,000 jobs to their payrolls in September, fewer than economists forecast for the last employment report before Election Day, highlighting a modest pace of hiring that has become an issue in President Bush’s bid for another term.
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Job growth was held down by losses in manufacturing, retail and information services. September’s net increase of 96,000 payroll jobs was less than August’s rise, which was revised down in Friday’s report from 144,000 to 128,000.
I know that Bush will somehow argue that this is encouraging news, but that’s only because the president had abandoned any sense of reality.
Economists expected 150,000 new jobs in September, which the nation obviously fell short of. But forget Wall Street expectations — Bush swore up and down last year that if Congress passed his third sweeping tax cut proposal, the economy would create 300,000 jobs a month, every month, starting in July 2003. Out of those 14 months, the economy actually met Bush’s guarantee twice and has fallen short 12 times, including each of the last four months.
Maybe we should put this in a metaphor Bush can understand: if a baseball manager loses 12 out of 14 games, after guaranteeing success, he loses his job.
And finally, since this is the last employment report before election, we can now say with certainty that Bush is the first president in over 70 years to have a net job loss for his presidency.
Remember, this is the same president who said, “Results matter.” Couldn’t agree more.