I’ve been listening to republicans try and diminish the 162,000 jobs that were created last month all weekend. I find it ludicrous on it’s face, that they’re complaining that this administration hasn’t managed to clean up after their unmitigated disaster fast enough! Here’s a newsflash for John Boehner; if your party hadn’t made such a huge mess of the economy, monthly job creation numbers wouldn’t even make headline news!
But beyond the obvious absurdity of the republican reaction to the job creation numbers, there’s a history of fun facts that I thought everyone would find interesting.
Let’s start with this – George W Bush didn’t create his first job until the beginning of his second term. That’s right, not one single fucking job for 4 years. And you wanna know who he put the onus on for that? You guessed it, it was Clinton’s fault. I have audio of Bush, Cheney, Rove, and Fleischer, and McClellan all blaming Clinton for the lack of job growth. Given how they handled Bush’s poor performance, republicans naturally feel that it’s unfair for Obama to ever so much as hint at the fact that the mess we’re in now is Bush’s fault.
Here’s another fun fact; in the last 60 years, the only person that created fewer jobs than a Bush was Eisenhower, in his second term. Poppy and W were the #2 and #3 worst presidents for job creation. Here are some numbers (the numbers represent millions of jobs created):
Truman 1949 -1952 5.2
Eisenhower 1953 – 1956 2.7
Eisenhower 1957 – 1960 0.8
Kennedy/Johnson 1961 – 1964 5.7
Johnson 1965 – 1968 9.8
Nixon 1969 – 1972 6.1
Nixon/Ford 1972 – 1976 5.2
Carter 1977 – 1980 10.4
Reagan 1981 – 1984 5.2
Reagan 1985 – 1988 10.8
Bush 1989 – 1992 2.5
Clinton 1993 – 1996 11.6
Clinton 1997 – 2000 11.5
Bush 2001 – 2004 (0.1)
Bush 2005 – 2008 5.1
It’s interesting that Poppy Bush didn’t blame Reagan for his abysmal performance, isn’t it? Jimmy Carter, by the way, kicked some job creation ass!
Another fun fact; wages went up not at all under the 8 years of George W Bush. So he didn’t create any new jobs, and for those that were employed, he kept your wages stagnant.
Now let’s look at some other fun facts – spending. The numbers on the right represent the change in spending relative to GDP:
Truman 1949 -1952 -23.9
Eisenhower 1953 – 1956 -10.4
Eisenhower 1957 – 1960 -7.9
Kennedy/Johnson 1961 – 1964 -6.7
Johnson 1965 – 1968 -6.8
Nixon 1969 – 1972 -5.4
Nixon/Ford 1972 – 1976 -0.9
Carter 1977 – 1980 -2.8
Reagan 1981 – 1984 +7.3
Reagan 1985 – 1988 +11.2
Bush 1989 – 1992 +12.2
Clinton 1993 – 1996 +3.0
Clinton 1997 – 2000 -9.8
Bush 2001 – 2004 +5.6
Bush 2005 – 2008 +6.3
Can you figure out who the fiscal conservatives are?
When I look at these sets of numbers I have to ask, “Where did the money under republicans go?” We saw less job growth and higher spending under republicans. Their approach is to spend more and tax corporations less. Keep in mind that when republicans talk about cutting taxes, they’re never talking about cutting your taxes. They’re talking about cutting corporate taxes. I hate to break it to you, but you’re not making “game changing” money. Adjusting your taxes up or down 3% – 6% amounts to your annual latte spending. And as they cut corporate taxes and increase corporate tax loop holes, they accomplish nothing in terms of creating jobs for you.
In Reagan’s case, all of that wild spending went into defense which created a crap load of defense jobs. Ironically, Reagan is the best example of how government can effectively create jobs.
These numbers don’t lie. I’m not an ideologue. I like living in the fact based community.
So next time you’re trapped at Thanksgiving dinner with your republican relatives, show them these numbers and help disabuse them of the mythology that they’ve been spewing for all of these years.
