NYT: Last Job Report Before Election Always Political Number (Bush=Hoover)

[DeepModem Mom]

Last Job Count Before Election: Always a Political Number
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS

Published: October 9, 2004


WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 - It's official. President Bush will be the first president since Herbert Hoover to face re-election with fewer people working than when he started.

No president may have more than an indirect influence on unemployment, and Mr. Bush had the bad luck to take office in January 2001, just before the economy was about to slide into a recession.

Still, despite the stimulus from three rounds of tax cuts, a spectacular expansion of the federal budget deficit and enormous assistance from the Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates 13 times, the nation has at least 585,000 fewer jobs now than when Mr. Bush took office.

On Friday, as the Labor Department issued its last update on job creation before the elections, the Bush campaign aggressively defended its record in a barrage of interviews and in a new television advertisement, declaring that the nation has added "nearly two million jobs'' since August 2003....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/09/politics/campaign/09bushjobs.html?hp&ex=1097380800&en=8854d8c9d32bdffc&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[w4rma]

1. Gotta love how the NYT makes excuses for Bush and the policy that the NYT

wealthy owners and editors support.

No president may have more than an indirect influence on unemployment, and Mr. Bush had the bad luck to take office in January 2001, just before the economy was about to slide into a recession.

[Dogmudgeon]

2. Didn't Bush talk the economy down during the 2000 campaign?

Yeah, I seem to remember something about him trying to blame Al Gore for all the ills of the world.

By the way, if you see him around, tell Ralph Nader he owes me a dime.

--bkl