Bush speaks of job growth, endorses fuzzy math

[Patrick M]

More from today's press briefing.

Q Let me ask you about the Detroit Economic Club speech that John Kerry gave. Why should the voters not blame this President for the loss of nearly a million jobs on his watch, when previous Presidents have faced bigger wars and deeper recessions?

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let me address a couple of things. We've overcome many challenges in this country over the last three years. A number of them go back to what occurred on September 11th. When it comes to the economy, let's look at the strains that were placed on our economy. We were in an economic downturn and the President inherited a recession when he came into office. Then you had the September 11th attacks. In the aftermath of September 11th, in the three months after September 11th, we lost a million jobs right there.

But this President looked at these challenges that we face and he led and he acted. He worked to pass pro-growth policies to get out economy growing and moving forward. Our economy is growing, it is moving forward. We've seen 1.7 million new jobs created over the last year. And the last thing we need to do is turn back from those policies.

John Kerry's pessimism won't create one single job. John Kerry's failed policies of the past have been dismissed by his own advisors as the wrong policies. So the failed policies of higher taxes, more regulation, more litigation, and more government control of people's lives would put the brakes on our economy.

Q But referring to my question, though, has this President faced greater challenges than the eleven previous ones?

MR. McCLELLAN: Oh, I think September 11th is not a challenge a number of those Presidents faced that you're referring to.

Q Does that alone justify --

MR. McCLELLAN: There have been great challenges we faced in the past -- let me point that out. But certainly September 11th was an extraordinary circumstance, and it was a direct attack not only on the American people, but on our economy. And this President acted to get our economy growing. What we've got to do is continue to pursue pro-growth policies. We need to continue to pursue policies of lower taxes, of stopping lawsuit abuse that drives up health care costs and drives up consumer products, of less regulation so that small businesses don't have to spend all their time on paperwork and they can focus on doing what they do best, which is their business and hiring people to help them. And we also need to encourage more innovation.

Q Just to complete my question, though, the President does not -- his economic policies bear no responsibility for what's taken place?

MR. McCLELLAN: The President's economic policies got us out of a recession, got our economy growing again, and got us creating jobs. Like I said, 1.7 million new jobs in the last year have been created in this country. The unemployment rate is down to 5.4 percent. That's lower than the averages of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. And real after-tax disposable income is up nearly 10 percent. So the President's policies are working to get the economy moving forward, and we need to continue to move the economy in that direction.

And like I said, there's clear differences on this issue, and John Kerry's policies would put the brakes on our economy and stall job creation that we're seeing happening right now.

[Rspaight]

Q But referring to my question, though, has this President faced greater challenges than the eleven previous ones?

MR. McCLELLAN: Oh, I think September 11th is not a challenge a number of those Presidents faced that you're referring to.

What a load of bovine feces.

So Bush gets a free pass for being the first since Hoover to lose jobs over his term because no one's ever had to deal with anything as hard as 9/11. (Well, except for the fact that the economy was bleeding jobs several months prior to September 11th.)

It's difficult to overstate the tragedy of 9/11, but Scotty has managed to do it. As awful as it was, as a challenge to the nation, it pales before WWII or the Great Depression. (Roosevelt was a pussy! He didn't face any "challenges" at all!) I mean, crap, how much of a "challenge" could it be if Bush was handing out tax cuts like candy and telling us all to go shopping? Doesn't sound that bad.

If he's going to use 9/11 as an excuse for his crappy economic policy, then he should have treated it like a real economic "challenge." Nothing about Bush's economic policies indicate a state of national emergency. To the contrary, he's gleefully *reducing* the resources available to the government.

Ryan

[Patrick M]

(Well, except for the fact that the economy was bleeding jobs several months prior to September 11th.)

Because he inherited a recession.

I tried to bold the relevant parts, but here it is again:

-the President inherited a recession
-we started turning a corner, then *bam* the enemy hit us
-thanks to his visionary tax cuts, we've turned the corner again
-this is not time to change policy! it's working! we made 144k jobs last month!

-Kerry is a flip-flopping pessimist who will bring the economy to a grinding halt, sully the office of president, and allow married homosexuals to burn flags. Plus the enemy willl hit us again if you vote for him. And he looks French. And didn't earn his purple hearts.

-Bush's visonary vision includes the following:

a) tax cuts
b) tort reform
c) reduced regulation

Based on the applause I saw in his rally transcripts, I assume his brand of no bullshit folksy medicine is based on his concern for the people of this great nation, not because he's in the pocket of large corporations and insurance companies.

If he's going to use 9/11 as an excuse for his crappy economic policy, then he should have treated it like a real economic "challenge." Nothing about Bush's economic policies indicate a state of national emergency. To the contrary, he's gleefully *reducing* the resources available to the government.

Bigger government and bigger deficits.

Can you whip up a job loss/growth by month chart from BLS.gov?

[Rspaight]

-Bush's visonary vision includes the following:

a) tax cuts
b) tort reform
c) reduced regulation

And the "ownership society"! Don't forget that. Based on the RNC speech, that means privatizing Social Security and shifting the shared risk of health insurance onto individuals.

What it really means is, "Bush broke it, you own it."

Can you whip up a job loss/growth by month chart from BLS.gov?

Why, certainly:

http://tinyurl.com/t1ek

Ryan

[Patrick M]

Question about Social Security:

Given that money going into the system today is being paid out to people who are currently receiving benefits, how in the hell can they privatize social security? I have yet to read an explanation for this anywhere.

In other words, if I pay $1 in, that dollar should go to granny. Now, if that dollar is instead invested in Enron, it's no longer liquid, so how can granny collect?

Can someone expalin this to me?

Re: the chart, things weren't too peachy before 9/11, eh?

[lukpac]

I seem to recall something about a $3 trillion gap.

[Dob]

Given that money going into the system today is being paid out to people who are currently receiving benefits, how in the hell can they privatize social security? I have yet to read an explanation for this anywhere.

Can someone expalin this to me?

AFAIK Bush has never addressed this question...the whole privatization idea is still in the "fuzzy math" stage. But plenty of economists, notably Paul Krugman writing in the NYT (putting aside for the moment that he is a relentless Bush basher), have challenged the privatization concept as being impossible without a reduction in benefits or a tax increase (or more government borrowing, of course).

IMO the privatization proposal has its roots in the stock market bubble. So many people are so enamored of the market that they think it can solve all our problems, even Social Security (maybe even Medicare too, which is an even bigger sinkhole). The numbers are just a "technicality" for economists to "sort out." As long as we all invest in the market, we can all retire rich.

[Rspaight]

I seem to recall something about a $3 trillion gap.

That's one estimate of the cost of Bush's Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Kerry Says President Hid Truth on Medicare Costs

2 Very Different Cures for Healthcare Crisis
September 14, 2004

By Michael Finnegan and Janet Hook, Times Staff Writers

MILWAUKEE — Sen. John F. Kerry broadened his effort to undercut President Bush's credibility on Tuesday by accusing the administration of "hiding the truth" about rising out-of-pocket costs that older Americans pay for Medicare.

Surrounded by senior citizens at a campaign forum, the Democratic nominee for president said the administration tried to conceal records that showed the growing burden of Medicare premiums and related costs.

"This administration can't tell you the truth about healthcare," Kerry told the crowd.

Joining the attack on Bush's trustworthiness was Kerry's running mate, North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. Campaigning in Oregon, he seized on a report that Bush's second-term agenda would cost $3 trillion over 10 years — far above the price of Kerry's plans.

"He's making proposals that are in the trillions of dollars in cost, for which he has no idea how he's going to pay," said Edwards, who likened Bush to indicted former Enron Chairman Kenneth L. Lay.

"You know, I think he believes that he's Ken Lay, and America is his Enron," Edwards said.

The Democratic ticket's one-two punch was part of a newly vigorous push to recover from more than six months of Bush campaign attacks on Kerry's credibility. Kerry pursued that effort Tuesday in two of the most fiercely contested swing sttes, Wisconsin and Ohio. Recent polls show Bush pulling ahead of Kerry in both states.

Kerry's attack also demonstrated the central role that rising healthcare and prescription drug costs are playing in the November election. Today, Kerry plans to start airing a Spanish-language television ad that spotlights his pledge to ensure health coverage for every child.

At Kerry's morning forum Tuesday in a Milwaukee senior citizens center, the Massachusetts senator illustrated his latest attack on Bush by holding up sheets of paper with obscure charts in tiny print.

He pointed to healthcare costs that the administration — for the first time — omitted this year from its annual Medicare report. They were made public Tuesday on the front page of USA Today. In a tone of mock disbelief, Kerry said the missing figures, which showed a spike in out-of-pocket Medicare costs for the elderly, happened to cover the 2004 election year.

"Oh my gosh, it's empty," he said. "A great, big question mark. They hid it from you. They didn't want you to know what the costs were."

The figures show that Medicare expenses for the average 65-year-old are expected to rise from 14% of the person's Social Security check in 2000 to 37% in 2006.

"Once again, this administration hides the truth from the American people," Kerry said.

Dr. Mark McClellan, the administrator of Medicare, said he was "not going to get into any political charges" but described Kerry's remarks as "misleading." He said savings from the new Medicare prescription-drug benefit would offset the higher costs.

A key source of the overall rise in Medicare costs is the upcoming 17% increase in premiums announced this month by the administration. The increase, which takes effect next year, has drawn sharp criticism from Kerry and Edwards, who use it to portray Bush as insensitive to the needs of Americans — whether elderly or not — who struggle to make ends meet.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans tried Tuesday to blunt the criticism and shield Bush from blame. At a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Medicare, Republicans challenged Kerry's standing to criticize the higher premiums, saying it was dictated by laws and policy changes that the Democrat supported.

"President Bush is not to blame for this," said Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.). "He is following the law — a law that Sen. Kerry and I both voted for."

The cost hike was indeed mandated under a 1997 law that requires premiums to rise as costs go up in the part of Medicare that pays for doctor bills. Next year, Medicare costs are expected to rise steeply for a variety of reasons, including a provision of the 2003 Medicare law that increased reimbursements to doctors and payments to encourage managed-care plans to participate in the program.

That 2003 law has led to fierce campaign sparring. The law expanded Medicare to cover prescription drugs and introduced new incentives for the elderly to join private managed care plans.

But some Republicans worry that it could hurt their party if Bush and his allies do not move aggressively to explain it clearly to voters.

"When the Kerry people come out and say, 'Bush increased your premiums,' it is just wrong, but it is up to the administration to correct that," said Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.).

He said the administration needed to do more to educate the elderly about benefits provided under the new law.

For Kerry, the law has become a favorite target on the campaign trail. In Milwaukee on Tuesday, he said the administration intentionally hid the full, $534-billion cost of the new prescription drug benefit, which Congress had projected at $395 billion. Kerry said the administration "intimidated and bullied" an official to keep him from telling Congress the real price. The administration denies both charges.

Kerry also renewed accusations Tuesday that Bush and his Republican allies in Congress favored insurance and pharmaceutical companies over consumers when they approved the drug benefit. He pointed to the ban on the Medicare program's purchasing of drugs in bulk to secure lower prices and the Republicans' refusal to let Americans buy lower-cost Canadian prescription drugs.

Kerry also responded to a new Bush campaign television ad saying his healthcare plan would put "big government in charge, not you, not your doctor."

"I have no new bureaucracy at all in my program," he said in Milwaukee. "You choose your doctor. You choose your plan."

In response to Kerry's remarks, Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said the senator voted for higher taxes on Social Security benefits, opposed the Medicare prescription drug bill and voted for the formula that led to higher Medicare premiums.

"Voters," he said, "will not trust a candidate whose political attacks are refuted by his own record."

As for the Edwards allegation that Bush's second-term agenda would cost $3 trillion, Schmidt disputed the Washington Post story on which it was based and said the actual figure was $74 billion.

[Rspaight]

An unimpressive 96,000 in September. Not enough to keep up with population growth, and well below analysts' expectations.

I'm sure Bush will trumpet "continued job growth" in the debate tonight, but that's like bragging about a 2% raise when inflation is 4%.

Ryan

[Rspaight]

Big numbers in October - up 337K. That's a good, solid increase -- perhaps hurricane-influenced, but good news all the same.

http://money.cnn.com/2004/11/05/news/ec ... tm?cnn=yes

However, unemployment's up a tenth to 5.5. More jobs, but more people looking for work.

Ryan

[Dob]

More good points against "privatizing" Social Security. From the Washington Post, edited by me for brevity.

Pulled Down By Our Own Bootstraps

By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, November 17, 2004; Page E01

When President Bush touts his tax cuts, health spending accounts and Social Security reform, he frames it in terms of giving you control over your own money and destiny, which resonates with the notions of individualism and self-reliance that Americans so admire.

But I suspect Americans would be a good deal less comfortable with the flip side of this approach, which is a determination to undo well-established mechanisms that spread some of life's risks, narrow the gap between rich and poor and promote the sense that we are all in the same boat.

The American workplace, for example, was once one of the great leveling institutions in American society. Companies systematically underpaid their best employees while overpaying those whose performance was subpar. Pay scales were set primarily on the basis of seniority and job title.

As companies faced more price competition, pay came to be based much more on what a worker could get on the open market. Government data confirm the resulting increase in inequality in wealth and income. So do soaring salaries for chief executives, star quarterbacks and college presidents.

When these inconvenient facts are presented in the context of proposals that would make things even more unequal -- eliminating the inheritance tax or cutting top tax rates -- Bush administration officials can only dissemble. What they believe, but don't have the guts to say out loud, is that the only thing that matters is equality of opportunity, not outcomes, while any attempt to make incomes more equal will only result in less efficiency and slower economic growth.

Those same social and economic values lie behind the proposal to divert Social Security deductions to individual retirement accounts. The president defends his plan by saying it will generate higher investment returns, which is probably true. But it conveniently ignores the benefits of a collective system, which would be lost.

For example, because contributions to Social Security are largely proportionate to income but benefits are much less so, Social Security transfers money from the rich to the poor. Any system of private accounts is bound to be less progressive.

More important, the collective system essentially represents a subsidy from those who die early to those who live longer than average. Such transfers are an essential part of any insurance scheme -- what is fire insurance but a transfer of money from those who don't have fires to the unlucky few who do? But that aspect of Social Security would be lost if the money set aside by people who die early is passed on as untaxed inheritance rather than put back into Social Security to pay benefits to those who live into their 90s.

The same dynamic is at work in health insurance, which in any given year represents a transfer of money from those who are relatively healthy to those who aren't.

What Bush prefers is a system in which Americans essentially insure themselves for all but catastrophic illness, putting aside money every year that can be rolled over from a "healthy" year to an "unhealthy" one.

The benefit of such a system is that Americans might become as cost-conscious in buying medical care as they are with everything else, helping to hold down spiraling health costs. But the trade-off is that we would abandon the principle that those lucky enough to be healthy should help out those who are not. Rather the Bush-Cheney attitude toward the unhealthy can be summed up in three words: "Suck it up."

[krabapple]

all (un)employment figures have to be taken with a grain of salt, since they may include shitty. low-pay 'temp' jobs with no security and few or no benefits.

In real terms, from what I've read, there has been a real erosion over the past few decades in the number of people who have what we'd call 'good' jobs. The unionized manufacturing jobs that used to catapult families out of poverty into the middle class in a generation or two, have, of course, been hit very hard.

[krabapple]

(btw, R., has Matthew Sweet ever explained his fondness for Roger Dean fonts?)

[Rspaight]

(btw, R., has Matthew Sweet ever explained his fondness for Roger Dean fonts?)

I don't recall ever reading anything that explained that. That album has a bit of an ELO feel in places, so maybe he was just in more of a 70s mode than usual.

Roger Dean actually did that lettering, though, not just an Roger-bot, for whatever that's worth.

Ryan

[Rspaight]

In real terms, from what I've read, there has been a real erosion over the past few decades in the number of people who have what we'd call 'good' jobs. The unionized manufacturing jobs that used to catapult families out of poverty into the middle class in a generation or two, have, of course, been hit very hard.

I heard a commentary by our friend Grover Norquist on (public radio show) Marketplace the other night. He was practically cackling with glee over the Republican electoral sweep, saying that this was the time to ram through tort reform, dismantle big government, privatize benefit programs and smash the unions, thereby obliterating the Democrat power base (unions, trial lawyers and, presumably, welfare queens) and ensuring Republican rule forever.

His big sound bite was, "The Republicans can exist outside of big government, the Democrats can't -- so now that the Republicans rule government and are going to shrink it, the Democrats will wither and die."

Exactly how this would be accomplished by a Republican administration that is outspending any Democratic administration ever was not explained.

Ryan