RSS Feed MenuA note to all Republican candidates: now would be a good time to be talking about jobs and specifically, how the Democrats are not creating any of them. On Friday, the White House is expected to recieve a report which Goldman Sachs predicts will announce that the economy shed as many as 100,000 jobs in February. This enormous figure wasn’t helped by all of the snow that kept many in the northeast stuck in their homes for much of the month, but nonetheless, the new figures could move the 9.7% unemployment figure closer to the dreaded 10% mark. In other words, Democrats that were hoping to be able to campaign amid a serious economic recovery in the months heading into the November mid-terms probably won’t be getting one.
Furthermore, the weekly numbers suggest that unemployment is still climbing, as unemployment claims moved from 22,000, to 496,000 for the week of Feb. 20. The four-week average also rose by 6,000.
Census hiring will partially alleviate the impact on job numbers, but the bottom line is that voters are unlikely to be listening when Democrats remind them that employment is a lagging indicator (it is, but they still won’t care) since it also happens to be one of the issues that they happen to care most about. Republican candidates should learn to use “jobless recovery” early and often and they should all be on message: create jobs, grow the economy, secure our nation’s defense. Any candidate that wins those issues will win election.
LFC // Mar 3, 2010 at 1:17 pm
Shorter Jeb Golinkin: Republican deregulation policy and failure to regulate the financial industry is responsible for the near destruction of the world economy, but let’s blame the Dems for not cleaning our mess up fast enough.
balconesfault // Mar 3, 2010 at 2:02 pm
That illustrates a problem with a “supply side” taxation scheme where taxation rates on the wealthy are on the wrong (low) side of the Laffer curve.
GDP growth usually correlates with the growth of wealth by the wealthy … but there is no innate reason why it should necessarily correlate with the reduction of unemployment, or at a broader scale with improvements in the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) which doesn’t just measure economic activity (where a multi-billion dollar financial transaction between two giant trading houses weighs more heavily than some activity which creates 2,000 new median-income jobs in the workplace) but instead weighs factors such as Income Distribution and employment as relevant to judging economic progress.
Sadly, the 00’s showed quite clearly that just reducing taxes does nothing to guarantee an increase in the GPI, and particularly to an increase in employment and standards of living. It is likely that until America finally embraces some form of trade protectionism (including measures such as public subsidy of healthcare so that employers are not saddled with that economic burden) that an erosion of our GPI and structural employment levels will continue, no matter what the GDP does.
aDude // Mar 3, 2010 at 4:16 pm
If you rely on unemployment still being at 10% come November as an election strategy you won’t do well. If I were a Democrat I would run lots of ads saying things like “Republicans cut taxes for the wealthy and destroyed millions of middle class jobs” with lots of charts showing job losses under Bush. By November things are going to look better, with the unemployment rate at 9% or lower and clearly on a downward trend
So we need to have a better message about long term growth and deficit reduction (and, yes, that includes having a serious talk about Social Security and Medicare).
Note that the Conservative Party in the UK had a strategy of “at least we’re not Labour” and managed to see a 20 point lead in the polls drop to the 2 to 5 percent range. Again, they have not yet articulated a positive differentiating strategy. I believe they will, but there is a lesson to be learned from their failure to adequately do so up until now.
GOProud // Mar 3, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Census hiring, Stimuli Spending Spree jobs for protected Democrat constituencies and special interests (teacher unions, police unions, govt workers, etc) and the New, Improved Jobs Bill won’t fool American voters.
Just like the Obami’s strategy to appear to have seriously incorporated mainstream GOP proposals into the Health sCare bill will fool Americans that the Obami heard the outcry, listened and reflected on the concern of public opinion and voters but still went ahead and shoved the bill down our throats.
Unemployment will be only one of many issues available to smarter, better positioned GOP candidates. Corruption and unchecked greed in Congress. Failed leadership and inexperience rampant in the White House. Soaring deficits. Massive trade imbalances. Out of control spending on a Chinese Credit Card. Playing softball with terrorist hell-bent on killing more Americans. Strong antipathy toward Democrats, Obama and the mainstream media. The threat of Cap & Trade. The global warming hoax unveiled. On and on the issues will amass.
NancyP will give us many more before she crawls back under her SF bridge to nowhere, before Harry gReid runs down his highway to nowhere, and Obama runs his flailing, fouled logo-challenged flag up the pole to nowhere.