Romney's Doublespeak on Jobs Report

by John M. Curtis
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Copyright August 7, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

           Today’s good news-bad news Labor Department report that the U.S. economy added 163,000 private sector jobs in July while unemployment bumped up from 8.2% to 8.3% gave Democrats and Republicans something to crow about.  Romney jumped all over the bad news about unemployment.  Calling the up-tick in unemployment a “hammer blow” on the middle class, GOP presidential nominee former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney blasted President Barack Obama’s economic policies.  Those are the same policies that have seen the Dow Jones Industrials rise from about 8,000 on Inauguration Day to today’s close at 13,080, whopping 70% increase.  They’re the same policies that have added nearly 4 million jobs since March 2010.  Romney complains that adding 163,000 jobs in July is not enough but remained silent when the Bush administration lost over 200,000 a month in 2008.

            Romney insists the one-tenth of a percent increase in unemployment proves Obama’s economic failure.  “Those economic policies, we know where they lead,” said Mitt.  “The lead to an America that is not as strong as it must be for ourselves, for our children and for the world,” completely ignoring the hard numbers demonstrating economic progress since Barack took office.  Romney wants the public to forget the mess Obama inherited from former President George W. Bush.  Called an economic calamity rivaling the Financial Panic of 1906, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan said it would takes years for economic recovery.  Other than cutting taxes on the rich, Romney offers no specifics of what he’d do different than Bush.  As a former Wall Street venture capitalist, Romney knows the market doesn’t rocket up on bad economic news.

            Powering up on the jobs report over 217 points or 1.56%, the Dow doesn’t lie.  It goes up when it reads future economic growth.  If you listen to Romney, you’d believe that July’s 163,000 private sector jobs was a bad thing for the economy.  When Ford announced July 12 it planned to add 12,000 new jobs, Romney yawned, knowing that the credit goes to Obama for bailing out the U.S. auto industry.  Adding 163,000 jobs threw Mitt for a loop, hoping to continue the moving average of 75,000 over the June and July.  While telling voters that today’s jobs report was disaster didn’t fly with Wall Street in rally mode.  Expectations about future growth and better earnings power Wall Street to new heights.  If the street read the Labor report negatively, the market would have sold off.  Romney knows that the smart guys on Wall Street rally on good news and don’t miss future economic trends.

            When the White House’s Office of Management and Budget and Congressional Budget Office revised the U.S. federal budget deficit downward July 27 to around $1.2 trillion, Romney ignored the good news.  He and the GOP hope for bad news to stick it to Obama in November.  Under Romney’s economic plan, he expects to add 12 million news jobs over the next four years, adding about 250,000 jobs a month, all because he plans to cut taxes.  Tax rates are already at unsustainably low levels, with the government collecting too little taxes to fund important national priorities like Medicare and Social Security.  Romney offers no details for his economic plan other than promising to continue the Bush tax cuts.  “America took a wrong turn in economic policy over the past three years,” said Romney’s economic advisors Columbia’s Glen Hubbard, Harvard’s John Taylor and Stanford’s Kevin Hassett.

            Romney’s conservative forecasters take swipes at Obama’s economic policies but have no answers for how they’d do things differently.  Saying that Romney’s plan decreases taxes on the rich while increasing taxes on the middle class, the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center calculates Romney’s plan would rob the U.S. Treasury of $360 billion by 2015, exploding the U.S. budget deficit.  Extending more tax cuts to the rich, Romney’s plan doesn’t consider what happens to the federal Treasury if tax cuts don’t generate the expected jobs.  Mitt’s economic forecasts parallel those of President Ronald Reagan’s Supply Side economist Dr. Arthur Laffer, projecting balanced budgets and economic prosperity.  By the time Reagan left office in 1988, he quadrupled former President Jimmy Carter’s $60 billion budget deficit.  Romney’s plan requires major cuts to the federal workforce.

                 Romney deserves credit thinking he can buffalo folks into believing the latest Labor Department report was a lethal “hammer blow” to the White House.  No matter how fitful the economy, adding 163,000 jobs is nothing to sneeze about.  Even if unemployment jumped one-tenth of one percent, it can easily drop next month if the economy keeps adding jobs.  Judging by Wall Street’s reaction, the smart money saw things differently than Mitt.  “The United States under-performed the historical norm shown show in the administrations own forecasts, and its policies are to blame,” said Romney’s cherry-picked economic team.  What they fail to mention was the “historical norm” didn’t include recovering from the biggest economic calamity since the Great Depression.  There’s nothing more dishonest than misstating the historic facts purely for political purposes.

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He's editor of OnlineColumnist.com.and author of Dodging the Bullet and Operation Charisma.

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