Unemployment Report Throws Romney for a Loop

by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700

Copyright Oct. 6, 2012
All Rights Reserved.                                         

         Reporting that the nation’s unemployment rate dropped to 7.8%, the Labor Department upended GOP presidential nominee Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s scathing indictment of President Barack Obama’s management of the U.S. economy.  Ripping Obama Oct. 3 in the first presidential debate, Romney said no president had a right to run for reelection with an unemployment rate above 8%.  Romney unloaded both barrels on Barack’s “reckless” approach to reforming health care while the nation’s unemployed suffered the indignity of no work.  Insisting that unemployment can only drop through his Supply-Side Economics theory of cutting taxes, the drop in the unemployment rate rained on Romney’s parade.  With the help of the wise Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Wall Street has risen over 70% since Obama took office Jan. 20, 2009.

            As a former venture capitalist with Bain Capital, Romney knows that when Wall Street performs Americans go back to work.  When markets collapse, publicly traded companies lay off workers.  Romney’s entire premise for replacing Obama involves  alleged mismanagement of the U.S. economy.  Yet Wall Street has dramatically thrived and the catastrophic collapse of the U.S. economy under the past GOP administration of George W. Bush has slowly improved.  When the U.S. banking industry ran out of cash in Dec. 2007, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that economic recovery would take years, perhaps a decade.  Less than four short years since Obama’s inauguration, a steady economic recovery is now underway.  Romney and his VP Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) have wished, hoped and prayed for continued economic disaster.

            Every time Romney or Ryan hear any good news about the economy they conveniently ignore it on the campaign stump.  Both have run on the premise that Obama isn’t fit to run the U.S. economy, yet all Federal Reserve Board, Labor and Commerce Department reports show that the economy’s recovering from the worst economic calamity since the Great Depression.  “An overall better than expected jobs report, consistent with most recent data that suggest the economy is gaining some momentum,” said Sal Guatieri, an economist at Los Angeles-based BMO Capital Markets.  While fact-checkers are busy musing over Mitt’s new Supply-Side projections, including his fantasy about tax cut cuts producing 12 million new jobs, voters are busy digesting today’s employment report.  Romney apparently wants to lower his already rock-bottom 14% tax rate down even more.

            Despite the lowest tax rates since WW II, Romney seeks more cuts to shrink the size and influence of the federal establishment.  He’s dreaming telling voters that the states can handle with strained budgets more Medicaid spending.  Mitt knows that no state governor can go it alone without federal government help.  If it’s OK for Mitt’s favorite corporations to receive government largesse, why is it not OK for states or individuals?  Mitt and Ryan subscribe to some warped interpretation of James Madison’s 1788 Federalist Papers.  If you shrink government revenue enough by reducing appropriate taxation, then the federal government would shrink to the government’s role during colonial days.  Before the Constitution was ratified June 21, 1788, the colonies had supreme authority.  Once the Constitution was signed, a new federalist system was put into place.

            Romney and Ryan’s tax cuts would place an undo burden on the federal government to continue performing many vital services for its citizens.  Most voters don’t agree with Mitt’s approach to continue cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans.  Without an appropriate tax base, the federal government can’t pay for the “common defense” or the myriad social and welfare programs needed to maintain an orderly and coherent society.  Romney’s off-the-wall when he talks of shifting the financial burdens to the states and local governments.  He knows state and local budgets have been stretched to the breaking point, with some municipalities and counties going under.  With all the talk of Romney repealing Obamacare, it’s no wonder that the biggest employment gains were in the health care industry.  If Romney repeals Obamacare, the health care expansion would stop.

            Blowing smoke to voters, Romney and Ryan continue to ignore the real data about economic growth under Obama.  Both ignore the steady rise in employment since March 2010.  They completely ignore the over 70% gain in the Dow Jones Industrials, Nasdaq and S&P that’s fueling today’s jobs growth.  Neither Romney nor Ryan acknowledge that the U.S. auto industry is back running on all cylinders because of Barack’s Feb. 17, 2009 $700 billion bailout bill.  Voters can expect Romney and Ryan to only highlight a doom-and-gloom scenario in hopes of scavenging for votes.  Voters are supposed to believe Mitt and Paul, not the National Association of Realtors that shows the long-awaited housing recovery has begun.  “U.S. could be growing jobs at a marginally faster pace than feared mid-summer,” wrote Gay LeBas, a strategist at Philadelphia-based Janney Capital Markets.

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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