Who cares about consistency

Democrats have longer argued against the tax cuts to empower wealth creation labeling it "voodoo economics" and "trickle down" economics.  Well, as the unemployment rate crossed 10.2% (a point which POTUS Obama said it would not cross with these programs he started), the democrats have been trumpeting that the programs are kick starting a recovery on Wall Street that just hasn't trickled down to the job market yet.  Ah so, trickle down theories do work?

While we're being consistent about numbers, let me shed some light on some of the stimulus fall out.  The Obama Administration is claiming that 640,329 jobs were created or saved through October 30th, 2009 via the stimulus bill.  Let's also consider that the number of employed people fell from roughly 140,436,000 in January to 139,088,000 in October.  That's 1.3 million jobs lost.  So clearly NO jobs were created by the stimulus bill and any claim along those lines is pure poppycock.  Even if we consider the flawed "saved or created" jobs claims by the Obama Administration at face value, the net would be 707,671 jobs LOST. And that's with $150 billion spent trying to "create or save" jobs.
Accepting the administration's flawed numbers, the net is still 707,671 jobs lost!
At the same time the population grew and the number of people eligible to work in the workforce grew, so the country experienced a growth in the number of people reporting unemployment from 13,009,000 in January 2009 to 14,547,000 in October of 2009.  This is 1.5 million additional people unemployed during those 10 months.  Some out there will like to measure based on a per capita basis with the theory that it's harder to create more jobs with more people in the work force.  The employment-to-population ratio was 59.8% in January of 2009 and fell to 58.8% by October.  We have to go back to the late 1960s before we find a period of time with such low ratios.

To put things in a historical perspective, from January 2000 to January 2009 (the period covering the maligned Bush administration), 5.5 million people were added to the employment rolls.  At the bottom of Obamacare, Cap & Trade and the pork filled Stimulus bill is the economy.  That is what will be the focus of the 2010 mid-term elections.  If, by that point, the democrats in power have pushed through economically disastrous legislation and if the republicans can clearly and simply articulate that and a path away from it, there will be a huge swing in legislative power.  And you know we're right because just as reader Lynn O. says, "you guys are awesome".

Note that all job data comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics using official government numbers.