For Immediate Release
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Detroit News Blog: Mythical 'saved' jobs figures won't aid Michigan's summer of discontent
U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Livonia, is chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee and is a four-term representative from Michigan's 11th Congressional District.
First, the Obama administration promised the unprecedented, trillion dollar spending and debt of its government stimulus scheme would "create 2.5 million jobs" by 2011. But the only thing that grew was the administration’s claim that its American Recovery Act would create "3.3 to 4.1 million jobs" by the end of 2010.
So far, not so good.
Lumbering to the Obama administration's rhetorical rescue, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Jan. 23 first uttered the mystical mantra "save or create" and "create and save" as the measure of the American Recovery Act’s jobs impact. Since Gibbs’ artful dodge, the Obama administration has employed this mystical mantra and trotted out its mythical figures without serious media scrutiny. Shocking.
In fact, no government agency or respectable independent entity has ever calculated how government spending "saves" jobs. The word was used to mask the bill's flaws and false promises. And no matter how clever the president's PR department, when the government bubble bursts, unemployment will get worse.
Indeed, compounding the calculating confusion, on Feb. 26, Christina Romer, chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, stated: "Now, even with the comprehensive recovery package, the unemployment rate is forecast to rise in the first half of 2009, just simply because output is continuing to fall. We anticipate that it will average just over 8 percent for 2009 as a whole."
Our nation's current 9.4 percent unemployment is expected to soar into double digits by year’s end. In our Michigan alone, because of the Obama administration's premeditated bankruptcies of Chrysler and GM, economist David L. Littmann projects unemployment will spike to 17 percent to 20 percent by year's end -- the greatest unemployment in our Great Lakes State in 70 years.
Now, with the government stimulus’ mythical "save or created" jobs harder to find than a chupacabra in a Starbucks, one need but watch the administration’s profligate spending, unimaginable deficits, unconscionable debt and escalating unemployment rate to realize why the White House is scrambling to "create or save" 600,000 jobs during our Michigan’s summer of discontent.
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