The President with the worst average unemployment rate since World War II is?

[Faun]

The President with the worst average unemployment rate since World War II is?

Barrack Obama: 8.86%

Average Unemployment Rates For US Presidents since World War II:

01. Lyndon Johnson: 4.19%
02. Harry Truman: 4.26%
03. Dwight Eisenhower: 4.89%
04. Richard Nixon: 5.00%
05. Bill Clinton: 5.20%
06. George W. Bush: 5.27%
07. John Kennedy: 5.98%
08. George H.W. Bush: 6.30%
09. Jimmy Carter: 6.54%
10. Ronald Reagan: 7.54%
11. Gerald Ford: 7.77%
12. Barack Obama: 8.86%

hey, loony toon.... how about a link to your lunacy?

A link isn't necessary. His nonsense has been debunked on this thread repeatedly. He's simply too retarded to comprehend.

Case in point.... take two presidents....

President A inherits an unemployment rate at a healthy 4.0%. The rate increases every month at 0.2 points... after 4 years, the unemployment rate is up to 13.6% and he would get kicked out of office.

President B inherits an obscene rate at 23.0%. The rate decreases every month at 0.2 points... after 8 years, the unemployment rate is under 4% (where president A started) and the 22nd Amendment is repealed for such a jobs god.

Then along comes a moron like you who idiotically claims president A performed better regarding unemployment because his average of 8.9% is far lower than president B's 13.2% average. That it doesn't matter how one president destroyed the job market while the other saved it -- all that matters is that president A's average unemployment rate was lower.

 

[Faun]

Obama happened to be president at the right time - right at the bottom of a recession. .

The recession didn't end until after Obama pushed both the stimulus and the cars for clunkers (major legislation) through congress. A large influx of government spending that got the economy moving again.

Bullshit. Unemployment was already headed in the right direction the day Obama was innaugurated.

You know you're fucking nuts, right?

Unemployment rate, when Obama became president....

6.8
7.3
7.8
Obama becomes president
8.3
8.7
9.0

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

Employed, when Obama became president....

-474K
-766K
-694K
Obama becomes president
-793K
-702K
-823K

Bureau of Labor Statistics Data

 

[Faun]

Those two programs pushed the GDP into positive, ending the recession.

Snowflakes really need to learn that just because they say something doesn't make it true.

Thank you for that examplem

It came from economic analysis. The bureau of economic advisers ran the numbers to determine when the deep recession ended and why they declared it over right after cars for clunkers.

This chart shows the recession ended even before Obama was innaugurated:

You know you're fucking nuts, right?

The recession ended in June, 2009, not January, 2009...

http://www.nber.org/cycles.html

 

[Faun]

It came from economic analysis. The bureau of economic advisers ran the numbers to determine when the deep recession ended and why they declared it over right after cars for clunkers.

The recession was over the day Obama was innaugurated.

Stupid Moron. Obama was inaugurated in january, the recession didn't end until after cars for clunkers in the summer.

The recession officially ended in June 2009, according to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of such dates.

Reality is anathema to the right.

 

[Faun]

This chart shows the recession ended even before Obama was innaugurated:

Are you some kind of mental moron? Read the chart, It's shows GDP change, the line remained BELOW ZERO (meaning negative growth) until June 2009 that second dotted line.

You must have gotten a 400 on the math SAT's.

The chart shows the recession bottomed out in the last quarter of 2008. GDP growth may have been negative for a while, but the negative was decreasing quickly.

Moron, recessions don't end when GDP bottoms out. They end when GDP turns positive.

Seriously, you're a fucking nut.

 

[Faun]

It did nothing of the sort. It was a huge boondoggle that made it impossible for poor people to buy affordable cars.

It ended the deepest recession in history.

You have to be the world's biggest sucker to believe that.

Insists the idiot who moronically claims Bush's Great Recession ended in December, 2008.

 

[Faun]

The recession didn't end until after Obama pushed both the stimulus and the cars for clunkers (major legislation) through congress. A large influx of government spending that got the economy moving again.

Obama's failed stimulus bill was a failed jobs bill that contained over seven thousand pieces of Democratic party only pork and failed to keep unemployment under 8% as promised

Obamas cars program called for the destruction of used cars which hurt Americans.

Those two programs pushed the GDP into positive, ending the recession.

Study: 'Cash for Clunkers' an even bigger lemon than thought

WASHINGTON – The government’s "Cash for Clunkers" program – pitched as a plan to jump-start U.S. auto sales and clean up the environment by getting gas-guzzling vehicles off the road -- may have been a clunker itself, according to a new economic study.

Researchers at Texas A&M, in a recently released report, measured the impact of Cash for Clunkers on sales and found the program actually decreased industry revenue by $3 billion over a nine-to-11-month period. Meanwhile, the "stimulus" also cost taxpayers $3 billion.​

It is amazing what lefties don't know.

Worse than that, everything they know is wrong.

Ya mean like your claim that a recession is over even as GDP remains negative, right?

 

[Faun]

With final years of his presidency included Obama managed to slip in just below Reagan. Trump is off to a fine start.

View attachment 154405​

Of course he is. That's the difference between inheriting a shrinking economy with 7.8% unemployment as opposed to inheriting an expanding economy with 4.8% unemployment.

Of course, to the brain-dead right, the unemployment rate went from 40% to 4% in little more than a year.

 

[RASTAMEN]

Considering he was given an economy losing 700k jobs/month and he turned it around in 9 months, at which point UE was at 10.3%, the pub outlook is gibberish.

No country is doing better than us NOW and they're waiting for us to pull them out of this gigantic Pub mess, if the Pubs would allow it, TOTAL DUPE of gloom and doom a-holes...We had 2.5% growth last year, with the Pubs and ignorant dupes fekking things up and moaning all the way. PFFFT!!

Again, your dog could direct this country to 2.5 percent growth. Record welfare, unemployment, fed pumping billions monthly into stock market, low gdp, 17 trillion in debt aren't exactly "turning it around". This is sub mediocre at best.

The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage
The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage

The Republican political strategy has been to obstruct efforts to help the economy for everyone but the wealthiest few, and then campaign on complaints that the economy isn’t helping anyone but the wealthiest few. It’s working.

In President Obama’s July 12 weekly address he said, “So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every serious idea to strengthen the middle class.” He could have said, “Since 2009.” Since the 2009 “stimulus,” Republicans have obstructed pretty much every effort to help the economy. In the Senate they have filibustered hundreds of bills, and since the “stimulus” they have managed to keep anything from passing that might help the economy.

In the House, Republicans have refused to allow votes on anything that seriously would help the economy, instead passing only tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, spending cuts on essential things like maintaining our infrastructure and scientific research, and cutting regulations that protect people and the environment from being harmed by corporations seeking profit.

Republicans have blocked every effort since the stimulus to maintain infrastructure, hire teachers, raise the minimum wage, give equal pay for women, stop special tax breaks for millionaires corporations (especially oil companies), stop tax breaks for sending jobs out of the country, provide student loan relief, help the long-term unemployed, and more. Instead they insist on even more tax breaks for oil companies and billionaires, on cutting environmental protections, deregulating oil companies, and so on.

Obstruction Using Senate Filibusters

How many bills have been filibustered by Senate Republicans since President Obama took office? Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein, in “All Filibusters, All the Time,” writes, “The correct count of how many bills have been filibustered during Obama’s presidency is: approximately all of them.”

That’s what it means to have a 60-vote Senate, which is what Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans declared as soon as Obama was elected. Almost every measure and, until Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats invoked the nuclear option last fall, almost every nomination, had to have 60 or more votes to pass. That’s a filibuster.

Here are just a few of the hundreds of bills Senate Republicans have filibustered since President Obama took office — just a few:

• Infrastructure bills
  The following headlines are from last week’s “Full Employment Is More Than Possible. It Is Essential.“
  

• 2011: “Republicans filibuster Obama infrastructure bill”
• 2012: “‘Phantom filibuster’ blocking path forward for highway bill, says Reid“
• 2013: “Bipartisan Transportation and Housing Bill Filibustered“

• Equal Pay for Women

• Minimum wage increase

• Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act

• Bring Jobs Home Act – stop tax breaks for moving jobs and production facilities out of the country

• Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act of 2011 – rehire 400,000 teachers, firefighters, paramedics and police officers.

• Student loan reform – ease the crushing burden of student loan debt by at least allowing refinancing to lower interest rates

• Extended unemployment benefits – for the long-term unemployed

• Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — let working people join unions – filibustered in 2007, killed by threat of filibuster 2009

• Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act – let public safety officers join unions

• The Buffett rule – ensure millionaires pay a comparable tax rate to middle-class Americans

• Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act

What would it have meant for the economy and jobs to launch a post-stimulus effort to maintain and modernize our infrastructure? How about reversing the tax structure that pays companies to move jobs out of the country? How about equal pay for women? How about a minimum wage increase? How about hundreds of thousands of teachers and first responders going back to work? How about being able to organize into unions to fight for wages, benefits and safer working conditions? How about relief from crushing student loan debt?

All of those things blocked, and people wonder what the economy is just slogging along…

Obstruction And Economic Sabotage In The House

In the House Republican leadership has been following what is called the “Hastert Rule” to obstruct bills that would win with a majority vote. This is not a real “rule”; it is a partisan method of limiting what Democrats and moderate Republicans can accomplish. Republican leadership will not bring a bill up for a vote unless a majority of Republicans are for it. In other words, even if a bill would pass with most Democrats and some Republicans voting in favor, it can’t even get a vote unless it fits with Republican doctrine. (Actually that would be Republican funder doctrine, which is basically oil companies, Wall Street and a few ultra-billionaires.)

So instead of looking at what has been blocked in the House, which would be literally everything Democrats and up to 49 percent of Republicans think would help the economy, we should look at what has passed. What has passed is a record of economic sabotage. Republicans claim there are more 300 bills passed by the House that are held up in the Senate. (Note that The Washington Post took a look at this and found that “In 11 of the past 19 Congresses – more than half – more than 300 bills were waiting for Senate action by the time the Congress completed its work.”)

Of particular note among the passed bills is the Republican “Path to Prosperity Budget” (a.k.a. the “Ryan budget”). It is described as “Cuts spending & implements pro-growth reforms that boost job creation.” It dramatically cuts taxes on the rich. It privatizes Medicare. It cuts spending on infrastructure, health care for the poor, education, research, public-safety, and low-income programs. It turns Medicaid, food stamps, and other poverty programs into state block grants.

Tax cuts aren’t going to fund schools or repair roads and bridges. And lo and behold, this Republican budget that passed the House cuts taxes and cuts funding for even maintaining – never mind modernizing – our vital infrastructure needs. This is a budget of economic sabotage.

Other Republican House “jobs” bills, listed at Speaker Boehner’s “jobs” page include:

• Repeal ObamaCare
• Working Families Flexibility Act – Eliminates overtime pay
• Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act
• Approve Keystone pipeline, to build a pipeline across the country so Canadian oil can be soil to China, easing an oil glut here and bringing prices back up.
• More offshore oil drilling
• Student Success Act – Promotes charter schools, cuts federal programs and support for schools
• Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act – blocks regulations on coal ash
• Energy Consumers Relief Act – block government regulation of oil companies and carbon pollution
• Stop Government Abuse Act – “Provides small business owners with tools to protect against government harassment.”
• Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act – “Stops the IRS from implementing the president’s health care law”
• Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act – “Requires congressional approval of any new regulation with an economic cost of at least $100 million”
• National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act – Facilitates the development of strategic and critical minerals used to support manufacturing jobs. (Note Senate Republicans filibustered this.)
• Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act – Prevents regulations on fracking
• Responsible And Professionally Invigorating Development Act – Expedites the approval for new energy projects
• Electricity Security & Affordability Act – Protects coal-fired plants from regulation
  Preventing Government Waste & Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act – prevents coal regulations
• Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act
• North American Energy Infrastructure Act – promotes cross-border pipelines.
• The Domestic Prosperity and Global Freedom Act – Expedites the approval of liquefied natural gas export applications
• Lowering Gas Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act – expanding production of oil and gas
• Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act – Permanently extends a ban on Internet access taxes

OK, got that? Their “jobs” bills include things like cutting government support for schools, stopping regulations on coal ash, requiring people receiving federal assistance to work, and drill-baby-drill. Oh, the list even includes bills that Republicans filibustered in the Senate.

It is not clear how getting rid of public schools and replacing them with charter, private and home schools is about “jobs.” It also is not clear how banning taxes on Comcast internet access “creates jobs.”

Many of these so-called “jobs” programs are really about subsidizing and assisting the oil and coal companies that provide so much of the funding for the Republican Party and conservative propaganda apparatus. (Note that Koch Industries is at heart an oil company.) They’re just called “jobs” programs because people need jobs – because Republicans have been blocking actual jobs programs.

And what about direct sabotage? Who can forget the Republican hostage-taking of the debt ceiling, when they threatened to take down the entire world economy unless we cut back on things like maintaining our infrastructure, scientific research, public health, hiring teachers and other things we do to make our lives better? There was a direct cost of $18.9 billion, but then there was the resulting credit rating downgrade, the pullback by businesses worried that they might actually do this, and so on.

Who can forget the terrible cost to the economy of the government shutdown? There was a direct cost of $24 billion, but also the reduced fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. And the continuing harm from loss of confidence in our government’s ability to, well, govern.

The Voting Public Doesn’t Know

The Senate filibusters of real job and economic recovery efforts, the House’s so-called “jobs and growth” bills, the debt ceiling fights, the cuts in economically necessary spending like infrastructure maintenance and finally the government shutdown combine to show an incredible record of economic sabotage. This was the Republican plan, we saw it unfold, and now we see Republican campaigns running against the “Obama economy.”

However, the voting public is largely unaware of this record of obstruction and sabotage and the effect on the recovery. Seriously, go out and ask around. If you are reading this you are likely a highly-informed person. So you might be aware that there have been filibusters, but maybe not that there have been up to 500 or more Republicans filibusters.

The corporate media obscures the obstruction and sabotage. The corporate/conservative propaganda apparatus blasts out diversion and distraction. And, of course, the Democrats are not presenting a unified explanation of how Republicans are hurting the economy and how they would make things better. (Until recently President Obama blamed “Congress” in general, and the media still does.)

If Republicans take the Senate this fall, will they continue the obstruction and sabotage? What if they later also take the presidency? Here’s the thing, they know their tax cut, deregulate, smaller government nonsense does not work to boost the economy. Any economist will tell you, history will tell you, and common sense will tell you that taking money out of the economy won’t help the economy. It’s bad enough now, what happens to the country if they win? It’s well past time to be fed up with this. Vote, make sure your friends and family vote. Volunteer to talk to people about the urgency of voting. It’s all we have left.

By the way, here is what that 2009 stimulus spending accomplished — we went from losing more than 800,000 private sector jobs a month to gaining 100-250,000 a month:

September 23, 2014
The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage

 

[RASTAMEN]

Up until Obama The President of the United States was accountable for many things....

Obama is not it seems....

Hey man, the 2017 economy that Trump is enjoying and taking all the credit for is actually Obama's economy! But don't worry starting in 2018, the economy belongs to TRUMP.

Keep in mind Trump has already lost 33,000 jobs!

 

[bripat9643]

No my point once again for the slow thinkers was the closer Obama got to the inevitable end of his terrible reign the more comfortable the business community felt about adding employees and investing. His term in office was an economic nightmare for the people and we sent him and folks like him packing by electing Trump....Thank God we did!

Here's unemployment under Obama

View attachment 154396

Add the longest continuous job growth in the history of the country.

Until Trump blew it in september.

Obama happened to be president at the right time - right at the bottom of a recession. Doing nothing would have been better than all the crap Obama signed.

Look at the chart below, it shows unemployment turned the corner virtually the day Obama was innaugurated. How can anyone honestly claim that Obama deserves the credit for that?

Well, no, it shows unemployment turned the corner a few months after Obama became president; after he signed ARRA into law.

He signed it on Feb 17, right at the very bottom of the recession, which means the recovery was already underway. As Obama himself pointed out, there were no "shovel ready jobs." It would take many months before any substantial monies went into the economy. The claim that the stimulus was resonsible is laughable.

 

[bripat9643]

Considering he was given an economy losing 700k jobs/month and he turned it around in 9 months, at which point UE was at 10.3%, the pub outlook is gibberish.

No country is doing better than us NOW and they're waiting for us to pull them out of this gigantic Pub mess, if the Pubs would allow it, TOTAL DUPE of gloom and doom a-holes...We had 2.5% growth last year, with the Pubs and ignorant dupes fekking things up and moaning all the way. PFFFT!!

Again, your dog could direct this country to 2.5 percent growth. Record welfare, unemployment, fed pumping billions monthly into stock market, low gdp, 17 trillion in debt aren't exactly "turning it around". This is sub mediocre at best.

The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage
The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage

The Republican political strategy has been to obstruct efforts to help the economy for everyone but the wealthiest few, and then campaign on complaints that the economy isn’t helping anyone but the wealthiest few. It’s working.

In President Obama’s July 12 weekly address he said, “So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every serious idea to strengthen the middle class.” He could have said, “Since 2009.” Since the 2009 “stimulus,” Republicans have obstructed pretty much every effort to help the economy. In the Senate they have filibustered hundreds of bills, and since the “stimulus” they have managed to keep anything from passing that might help the economy.

In the House, Republicans have refused to allow votes on anything that seriously would help the economy, instead passing only tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, spending cuts on essential things like maintaining our infrastructure and scientific research, and cutting regulations that protect people and the environment from being harmed by corporations seeking profit.

Republicans have blocked every effort since the stimulus to maintain infrastructure, hire teachers, raise the minimum wage, give equal pay for women, stop special tax breaks for millionaires corporations (especially oil companies), stop tax breaks for sending jobs out of the country, provide student loan relief, help the long-term unemployed, and more. Instead they insist on even more tax breaks for oil companies and billionaires, on cutting environmental protections, deregulating oil companies, and so on.

Obstruction Using Senate Filibusters

How many bills have been filibustered by Senate Republicans since President Obama took office? Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein, in “All Filibusters, All the Time,” writes, “The correct count of how many bills have been filibustered during Obama’s presidency is: approximately all of them.”

That’s what it means to have a 60-vote Senate, which is what Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans declared as soon as Obama was elected. Almost every measure and, until Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats invoked the nuclear option last fall, almost every nomination, had to have 60 or more votes to pass. That’s a filibuster.

Here are just a few of the hundreds of bills Senate Republicans have filibustered since President Obama took office — just a few:

• 
  
  
  • Infrastructure bills
    The following headlines are from last week’s “Full Employment Is More Than Possible. It Is Essential.“

• 
  
  
  • 2011: “Republicans filibuster Obama infrastructure bill”
  • 2012: “‘Phantom filibuster’ blocking path forward for highway bill, says Reid“
  • 2013: “Bipartisan Transportation and Housing Bill Filibustered“

• 
  
  
  • Equal Pay for Women

• 
  
  
  • Minimum wage increase

• 
  
  
  • Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act

• 
  
  
  • Bring Jobs Home Act – stop tax breaks for moving jobs and production facilities out of the country

• 
  
  
  • Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act of 2011 – rehire 400,000 teachers, firefighters, paramedics and police officers.

• 
  
  
  • Student loan reform – ease the crushing burden of student loan debt by at least allowing refinancing to lower interest rates

• 
  
  
  • Extended unemployment benefits – for the long-term unemployed

• 
  
  
  • Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — let working people join unions – filibustered in 2007, killed by threat of filibuster 2009

• 
  
  
  • Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act – let public safety officers join unions

• 
  
  
  • The Buffett rule – ensure millionaires pay a comparable tax rate to middle-class Americans

• 
  
  
  • Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act

What would it have meant for the economy and jobs to launch a post-stimulus effort to maintain and modernize our infrastructure? How about reversing the tax structure that pays companies to move jobs out of the country? How about equal pay for women? How about a minimum wage increase? How about hundreds of thousands of teachers and first responders going back to work? How about being able to organize into unions to fight for wages, benefits and safer working conditions? How about relief from crushing student loan debt?

All of those things blocked, and people wonder what the economy is just slogging along…

Obstruction And Economic Sabotage In The House

In the House Republican leadership has been following what is called the “Hastert Rule” to obstruct bills that would win with a majority vote. This is not a real “rule”; it is a partisan method of limiting what Democrats and moderate Republicans can accomplish. Republican leadership will not bring a bill up for a vote unless a majority of Republicans are for it. In other words, even if a bill would pass with most Democrats and some Republicans voting in favor, it can’t even get a vote unless it fits with Republican doctrine. (Actually that would be Republican funder doctrine, which is basically oil companies, Wall Street and a few ultra-billionaires.)

So instead of looking at what has been blocked in the House, which would be literally everything Democrats and up to 49 percent of Republicans think would help the economy, we should look at what has passed. What has passed is a record of economic sabotage. Republicans claim there are more 300 bills passed by the House that are held up in the Senate. (Note that The Washington Post took a look at this and found that “In 11 of the past 19 Congresses – more than half – more than 300 bills were waiting for Senate action by the time the Congress completed its work.”)

Of particular note among the passed bills is the Republican “Path to Prosperity Budget” (a.k.a. the “Ryan budget”). It is described as “Cuts spending & implements pro-growth reforms that boost job creation.” It dramatically cuts taxes on the rich. It privatizes Medicare. It cuts spending on infrastructure, health care for the poor, education, research, public-safety, and low-income programs. It turns Medicaid, food stamps, and other poverty programs into state block grants.

Tax cuts aren’t going to fund schools or repair roads and bridges. And lo and behold, this Republican budget that passed the House cuts taxes and cuts funding for even maintaining – never mind modernizing – our vital infrastructure needs. This is a budget of economic sabotage.

Other Republican House “jobs” bills, listed at Speaker Boehner’s “jobs” page include:

• 
  
  
  • Repeal ObamaCare
  • Working Families Flexibility Act – Eliminates overtime pay
  • Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act
  • Approve Keystone pipeline, to build a pipeline across the country so Canadian oil can be soil to China, easing an oil glut here and bringing prices back up.
  • More offshore oil drilling
  • Student Success Act – Promotes charter schools, cuts federal programs and support for schools
  • Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act – blocks regulations on coal ash
  • Energy Consumers Relief Act – block government regulation of oil companies and carbon pollution
  • Stop Government Abuse Act – “Provides small business owners with tools to protect against government harassment.”
  • Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act – “Stops the IRS from implementing the president’s health care law”
  • Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act – “Requires congressional approval of any new regulation with an economic cost of at least $100 million”
  • National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act – Facilitates the development of strategic and critical minerals used to support manufacturing jobs. (Note Senate Republicans filibustered this.)
  • Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act – Prevents regulations on fracking
  • Responsible And Professionally Invigorating Development Act – Expedites the approval for new energy projects
  • Electricity Security & Affordability Act – Protects coal-fired plants from regulation
    Preventing Government Waste & Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act – prevents coal regulations
  • Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act
  • North American Energy Infrastructure Act – promotes cross-border pipelines.
  • The Domestic Prosperity and Global Freedom Act – Expedites the approval of liquefied natural gas export applications
  • Lowering Gas Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act – expanding production of oil and gas
  • Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act – Permanently extends a ban on Internet access taxes

OK, got that? Their “jobs” bills include things like cutting government support for schools, stopping regulations on coal ash, requiring people receiving federal assistance to work, and drill-baby-drill. Oh, the list even includes bills that Republicans filibustered in the Senate.

It is not clear how getting rid of public schools and replacing them with charter, private and home schools is about “jobs.” It also is not clear how banning taxes on Comcast internet access “creates jobs.”

Many of these so-called “jobs” programs are really about subsidizing and assisting the oil and coal companies that provide so much of the funding for the Republican Party and conservative propaganda apparatus. (Note that Koch Industries is at heart an oil company.) They’re just called “jobs” programs because people need jobs – because Republicans have been blocking actual jobs programs.

And what about direct sabotage? Who can forget the Republican hostage-taking of the debt ceiling, when they threatened to take down the entire world economy unless we cut back on things like maintaining our infrastructure, scientific research, public health, hiring teachers and other things we do to make our lives better? There was a direct cost of $18.9 billion, but then there was the resulting credit rating downgrade, the pullback by businesses worried that they might actually do this, and so on.

Who can forget the terrible cost to the economy of the government shutdown? There was a direct cost of $24 billion, but also the reduced fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. And the continuing harm from loss of confidence in our government’s ability to, well, govern.

The Voting Public Doesn’t Know

The Senate filibusters of real job and economic recovery efforts, the House’s so-called “jobs and growth” bills, the debt ceiling fights, the cuts in economically necessary spending like infrastructure maintenance and finally the government shutdown combine to show an incredible record of economic sabotage. This was the Republican plan, we saw it unfold, and now we see Republican campaigns running against the “Obama economy.”

However, the voting public is largely unaware of this record of obstruction and sabotage and the effect on the recovery. Seriously, go out and ask around. If you are reading this you are likely a highly-informed person. So you might be aware that there have been filibusters, but maybe not that there have been up to 500 or more Republicans filibusters.

The corporate media obscures the obstruction and sabotage. The corporate/conservative propaganda apparatus blasts out diversion and distraction. And, of course, the Democrats are not presenting a unified explanation of how Republicans are hurting the economy and how they would make things better. (Until recently President Obama blamed “Congress” in general, and the media still does.)

If Republicans take the Senate this fall, will they continue the obstruction and sabotage? What if they later also take the presidency? Here’s the thing, they know their tax cut, deregulate, smaller government nonsense does not work to boost the economy. Any economist will tell you, history will tell you, and common sense will tell you that taking money out of the economy won’t help the economy. It’s bad enough now, what happens to the country if they win? It’s well past time to be fed up with this. Vote, make sure your friends and family vote. Volunteer to talk to people about the urgency of voting. It’s all we have left.

By the way, here is what that 2009 stimulus spending accomplished — we went from losing more than 800,000 private sector jobs a month to gaining 100-250,000 a month:

September 23, 2014
The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage

Sept 23 2014? Havne't you turds been saying the stimulus and "cash for klunkers" ended the recession?

 

[bripat9643]

Up until Obama The President of the United States was accountable for many things....

Obama is not it seems....

Hey man, the 2017 economy that Trump is enjoying and taking all the credit for is actually Obama's economy! But don't worry starting in 2018, the economy belongs to TRUMP.

Keep in mind Trump has already lost 33,000 jobs!

Yeah, we know. Obama gets credit for anything good that happens from Jan 2009 until the end of eternity. Trump gets credit for anything bad that happens.

 

[bripat9643]

Those two programs pushed the GDP into positive, ending the recession.

Snowflakes really need to learn that just because they say something doesn't make it true.

Thank you for that examplem

It came from economic analysis. The bureau of economic advisers ran the numbers to determine when the deep recession ended and why they declared it over right after cars for clunkers.

This chart shows the recession ended even before Obama was innaugurated:

You know you're fucking nuts, right?

The recession ended in June, 2009, not January, 2009...

http://www.nber.org/cycles.html

Look at the graph I posted. Where does it show the economy bottomed out? It wasn't June 2009. It was 2008-Q4 - before Obama was inven innaugurated. When the government says the recessino is over, that means it started recovering months earlier.

 

[bripat9643]

This chart shows the recession ended even before Obama was innaugurated:

Are you some kind of mental moron? Read the chart, It's shows GDP change, the line remained BELOW ZERO (meaning negative growth) until June 2009 that second dotted line.

You must have gotten a 400 on the math SAT's.

The chart shows the recession bottomed out in the last quarter of 2008. GDP growth may have been negative for a while, but the negative was decreasing quickly.

Moron, recessions don't end when GDP bottoms out. They end when GDP turns positive.

Seriously, you're a fucking nut.

Bullshit. The have already been recovering for months by the time they are officialy "over."

 

[james bond]

The unemployment numbers should be higher than 8.86%. Obama and the Dems created the most part-time jobs due to Obamacare and trying to get employment numbers higher so they could stay in office.

 

[IM2]

Again it is not. Trump is a crook. If you do something against the law, and are found guilty of a crime whether it be in a civil proceeding or not, you are a criminal. You see Bill Clinton settle out of court with Paula Jones and he is a rapist according to those like you. So Trump is a criminal. He is a crook. A proven crook. Fraud is a crime. Understand?

Hillary was not indicted because she did nothing illegal.

He wasn't found guilty of committing a crime, moron. You can get sued because someone slips on your sidewalk. Are you a criminal? Obviously not. A brain damaged cockroach has a better understanding of the law than you.

He was found guilty of fraud. He paid a settlement of 25 million. He had won the presidency. If he had been innocent, he could have taken this to court. Presidents word against those who sued. But he knew he committed fraud and agreed to a settlement.

You aren't "found guilty" in civil court, moron. You simply win the case or lose it.

As long as fraud is a crime,, Trump s a criminal. When fraud becomes legal, then you can say what you are now.

He wasn't indicted for fraud, asshole. Claims in a lawsuit don't mean jack shit in terms of criminal law.

He paid a 25 million dollar settlement so it would not go to court. Because had it gone to court he was dead. He committed fraud. That is a crime.

 

[IM2]

I've voted in every election since I was 18. Whites did not vote in the mid term in larger numbers. Concern yourself with that and shut the fuck up.

Whites like trump. I got news for you trumps going to upset blacks long before he upsets those poor whites.

I already knew this. But it seems like 67% of all Americans don't like Trump. If poor whites are stupid enough to sink themselves, well you should have helped them instead of trying to tell us what we need to do as blacks.

You're a demographic we need. For years poor whites said blacks stupidly vote democratic. I told them you guys are the ones voting right.

If poor whites would stop being conned with god gays guns and racism they'd realize economically they don't belong in that party.

Then it's up to you whites to convince them of it. But first you have to work to get rid of their racism. That cowardly you can't change hearts and mind mentality that white democrats use with white racists needs to go.

And when will you get rid of YOUR personal racism?

I can't get rid of what I don't have.

 

[francoHFW]

Considering he was given an economy losing 700k jobs/month and he turned it around in 9 months, at which point UE was at 10.3%, the pub outlook is gibberish.

No country is doing better than us NOW and they're waiting for us to pull them out of this gigantic Pub mess, if the Pubs would allow it, TOTAL DUPE of gloom and doom a-holes...We had 2.5% growth last year, with the Pubs and ignorant dupes fekking things up and moaning all the way. PFFFT!!

Again, your dog could direct this country to 2.5 percent growth. Record welfare, unemployment, fed pumping billions monthly into stock market, low gdp, 17 trillion in debt aren't exactly "turning it around". This is sub mediocre at best.

The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage
The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage

The Republican political strategy has been to obstruct efforts to help the economy for everyone but the wealthiest few, and then campaign on complaints that the economy isn’t helping anyone but the wealthiest few. It’s working.

In President Obama’s July 12 weekly address he said, “So far this year, Republicans in Congress have blocked every serious idea to strengthen the middle class.” He could have said, “Since 2009.” Since the 2009 “stimulus,” Republicans have obstructed pretty much every effort to help the economy. In the Senate they have filibustered hundreds of bills, and since the “stimulus” they have managed to keep anything from passing that might help the economy.

In the House, Republicans have refused to allow votes on anything that seriously would help the economy, instead passing only tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, spending cuts on essential things like maintaining our infrastructure and scientific research, and cutting regulations that protect people and the environment from being harmed by corporations seeking profit.

Republicans have blocked every effort since the stimulus to maintain infrastructure, hire teachers, raise the minimum wage, give equal pay for women, stop special tax breaks for millionaires corporations (especially oil companies), stop tax breaks for sending jobs out of the country, provide student loan relief, help the long-term unemployed, and more. Instead they insist on even more tax breaks for oil companies and billionaires, on cutting environmental protections, deregulating oil companies, and so on.

Obstruction Using Senate Filibusters

How many bills have been filibustered by Senate Republicans since President Obama took office? Bloomberg’s Jonathan Bernstein, in “All Filibusters, All the Time,” writes, “The correct count of how many bills have been filibustered during Obama’s presidency is: approximately all of them.”

That’s what it means to have a 60-vote Senate, which is what Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans declared as soon as Obama was elected. Almost every measure and, until Majority Leader Harry Reid and the Democrats invoked the nuclear option last fall, almost every nomination, had to have 60 or more votes to pass. That’s a filibuster.

Here are just a few of the hundreds of bills Senate Republicans have filibustered since President Obama took office — just a few:

• 
  
  
  • Infrastructure bills
    The following headlines are from last week’s “Full Employment Is More Than Possible. It Is Essential.“

• 
  
  
  • 2011: “Republicans filibuster Obama infrastructure bill”
  • 2012: “‘Phantom filibuster’ blocking path forward for highway bill, says Reid“
  • 2013: “Bipartisan Transportation and Housing Bill Filibustered“

• 
  
  
  • Equal Pay for Women

• 
  
  
  • Minimum wage increase

• 
  
  
  • Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act

• 
  
  
  • Bring Jobs Home Act – stop tax breaks for moving jobs and production facilities out of the country

• 
  
  
  • Teachers and First Responders Back to Work Act of 2011 – rehire 400,000 teachers, firefighters, paramedics and police officers.

• 
  
  
  • Student loan reform – ease the crushing burden of student loan debt by at least allowing refinancing to lower interest rates

• 
  
  
  • Extended unemployment benefits – for the long-term unemployed

• 
  
  
  • Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — let working people join unions – filibustered in 2007, killed by threat of filibuster 2009

• 
  
  
  • Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act – let public safety officers join unions

• 
  
  
  • The Buffett rule – ensure millionaires pay a comparable tax rate to middle-class Americans

• 
  
  
  • Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act

What would it have meant for the economy and jobs to launch a post-stimulus effort to maintain and modernize our infrastructure? How about reversing the tax structure that pays companies to move jobs out of the country? How about equal pay for women? How about a minimum wage increase? How about hundreds of thousands of teachers and first responders going back to work? How about being able to organize into unions to fight for wages, benefits and safer working conditions? How about relief from crushing student loan debt?

All of those things blocked, and people wonder what the economy is just slogging along…

Obstruction And Economic Sabotage In The House

In the House Republican leadership has been following what is called the “Hastert Rule” to obstruct bills that would win with a majority vote. This is not a real “rule”; it is a partisan method of limiting what Democrats and moderate Republicans can accomplish. Republican leadership will not bring a bill up for a vote unless a majority of Republicans are for it. In other words, even if a bill would pass with most Democrats and some Republicans voting in favor, it can’t even get a vote unless it fits with Republican doctrine. (Actually that would be Republican funder doctrine, which is basically oil companies, Wall Street and a few ultra-billionaires.)

So instead of looking at what has been blocked in the House, which would be literally everything Democrats and up to 49 percent of Republicans think would help the economy, we should look at what has passed. What has passed is a record of economic sabotage. Republicans claim there are more 300 bills passed by the House that are held up in the Senate. (Note that The Washington Post took a look at this and found that “In 11 of the past 19 Congresses – more than half – more than 300 bills were waiting for Senate action by the time the Congress completed its work.”)

Of particular note among the passed bills is the Republican “Path to Prosperity Budget” (a.k.a. the “Ryan budget”). It is described as “Cuts spending & implements pro-growth reforms that boost job creation.” It dramatically cuts taxes on the rich. It privatizes Medicare. It cuts spending on infrastructure, health care for the poor, education, research, public-safety, and low-income programs. It turns Medicaid, food stamps, and other poverty programs into state block grants.

Tax cuts aren’t going to fund schools or repair roads and bridges. And lo and behold, this Republican budget that passed the House cuts taxes and cuts funding for even maintaining – never mind modernizing – our vital infrastructure needs. This is a budget of economic sabotage.

Other Republican House “jobs” bills, listed at Speaker Boehner’s “jobs” page include:

• 
  
  
  • Repeal ObamaCare
  • Working Families Flexibility Act – Eliminates overtime pay
  • Preserving Work Requirements for Welfare Programs Act
  • Approve Keystone pipeline, to build a pipeline across the country so Canadian oil can be soil to China, easing an oil glut here and bringing prices back up.
  • More offshore oil drilling
  • Student Success Act – Promotes charter schools, cuts federal programs and support for schools
  • Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act – blocks regulations on coal ash
  • Energy Consumers Relief Act – block government regulation of oil companies and carbon pollution
  • Stop Government Abuse Act – “Provides small business owners with tools to protect against government harassment.”
  • Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act – “Stops the IRS from implementing the president’s health care law”
  • Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act – “Requires congressional approval of any new regulation with an economic cost of at least $100 million”
  • National Strategic and Critical Minerals Production Act – Facilitates the development of strategic and critical minerals used to support manufacturing jobs. (Note Senate Republicans filibustered this.)
  • Protecting States’ Rights to Promote American Energy Security Act – Prevents regulations on fracking
  • Responsible And Professionally Invigorating Development Act – Expedites the approval for new energy projects
  • Electricity Security & Affordability Act – Protects coal-fired plants from regulation
    Preventing Government Waste & Protecting Coal Mining Jobs in America Act – prevents coal regulations
  • Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act
  • North American Energy Infrastructure Act – promotes cross-border pipelines.
  • The Domestic Prosperity and Global Freedom Act – Expedites the approval of liquefied natural gas export applications
  • Lowering Gas Prices to Fuel an America That Works Act – expanding production of oil and gas
  • Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act – Permanently extends a ban on Internet access taxes

OK, got that? Their “jobs” bills include things like cutting government support for schools, stopping regulations on coal ash, requiring people receiving federal assistance to work, and drill-baby-drill. Oh, the list even includes bills that Republicans filibustered in the Senate.

It is not clear how getting rid of public schools and replacing them with charter, private and home schools is about “jobs.” It also is not clear how banning taxes on Comcast internet access “creates jobs.”

Many of these so-called “jobs” programs are really about subsidizing and assisting the oil and coal companies that provide so much of the funding for the Republican Party and conservative propaganda apparatus. (Note that Koch Industries is at heart an oil company.) They’re just called “jobs” programs because people need jobs – because Republicans have been blocking actual jobs programs.

And what about direct sabotage? Who can forget the Republican hostage-taking of the debt ceiling, when they threatened to take down the entire world economy unless we cut back on things like maintaining our infrastructure, scientific research, public health, hiring teachers and other things we do to make our lives better? There was a direct cost of $18.9 billion, but then there was the resulting credit rating downgrade, the pullback by businesses worried that they might actually do this, and so on.

Who can forget the terrible cost to the economy of the government shutdown? There was a direct cost of $24 billion, but also the reduced fourth-quarter GDP growth from 3 percent to 2.4 percent. And the continuing harm from loss of confidence in our government’s ability to, well, govern.

The Voting Public Doesn’t Know

The Senate filibusters of real job and economic recovery efforts, the House’s so-called “jobs and growth” bills, the debt ceiling fights, the cuts in economically necessary spending like infrastructure maintenance and finally the government shutdown combine to show an incredible record of economic sabotage. This was the Republican plan, we saw it unfold, and now we see Republican campaigns running against the “Obama economy.”

However, the voting public is largely unaware of this record of obstruction and sabotage and the effect on the recovery. Seriously, go out and ask around. If you are reading this you are likely a highly-informed person. So you might be aware that there have been filibusters, but maybe not that there have been up to 500 or more Republicans filibusters.

The corporate media obscures the obstruction and sabotage. The corporate/conservative propaganda apparatus blasts out diversion and distraction. And, of course, the Democrats are not presenting a unified explanation of how Republicans are hurting the economy and how they would make things better. (Until recently President Obama blamed “Congress” in general, and the media still does.)

If Republicans take the Senate this fall, will they continue the obstruction and sabotage? What if they later also take the presidency? Here’s the thing, they know their tax cut, deregulate, smaller government nonsense does not work to boost the economy. Any economist will tell you, history will tell you, and common sense will tell you that taking money out of the economy won’t help the economy. It’s bad enough now, what happens to the country if they win? It’s well past time to be fed up with this. Vote, make sure your friends and family vote. Volunteer to talk to people about the urgency of voting. It’s all we have left.

By the way, here is what that 2009 stimulus spending accomplished — we went from losing more than 800,000 private sector jobs a month to gaining 100-250,000 a month:

September 23, 2014
The Cost To Our Economy From Republican Obstruction And Sabotage

Sept 23 2014? Havne't you turds been saying the stimulus and "cash for klunkers" ended the recession?

Technically yes it did but in the world that's still in a depression not enough yet at that time and the GOP blocked everything from then on.

 

[IM2]

Just face it chicken wings. Your economic polices failed and almost created a depression that Obama saved us from.