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    • Obama’s Economic Unicorn part 3

    John on May 2, 2009 at 9:12 pm

    If you missed parts 1 and 2 they’re here and here.

    Fact Check reveals the complete absence of facts behind Obama’s latest economic claims:

    At President Obama’s April 29 news conference, he claimed that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has “already saved or created over 150,000 jobs.” Wait a minute. Isn’t the number of jobs actually plummeting?

    According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy lost more than 1.3 million jobs in the two months after he took office, and it has probably lost at least another half-million in April. The day after Obama spoke, the Department of Labor announced that another 631,000 workers (seasonally adjusted) had filed new claims for unemployment insurance the previous week.

    So what 150,000 jobs was Obama talking about?

    It turns out the president’s claim is really an estimate of what his economic advisers think the stimulus bill is doing, and not based on any evidence of its actual effects.

    We asked the White House for substantiation of Obama’s claim, and a spokesman responded that the figure comes from a recent estimate by the Council of Economic Advisers. “Because the baseline for employment is obviously still strongly downward,” the spokesman told us, “the estimate does not mean that employment has risen by 150,000. Rather, it means that employment is 150,000 higher than it otherwise would have been.”

    Kudos to Jake Tapper for calling him on this and to Fact Check for pointing it out. At what point will the rest of the press corps start to get an itchy feeling whenever Obama throws out numbers like this?

    obama-unicorn2

    [HT: Hot Air headlines]

    Category: Energy & Economy |

    1 Comment

    1. John Connor

      “Wait a minute. Isn’t the number of jobs actually plummeting?”

      Interesting mathematical spin. Unfortunately, it’s all too transparent. If the claim is that he is saving jobs and creating jobs, but the number of jobs is still falling, that does not mean he is lying. It simply means that the number of jobs is falling faster than he’s creating/saving jobs. It’s like if a well is draining at a gallon per hour, but you put in a cup of water every hour. Just because the water level isn’t getting higher doesn’t mean you’re not putting water into the well.

      Just to note, I am not an Obama supporter. I don’t have a “horse in the race”. I’m just merely illustrating your duplicitous and shallow attempt to discredit someone to further your own agenda.

      May 3, 2009 @ 8:46 pm

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