AP's Liz 'Sore Loser' Sidoti: GOP Counted on 'Lagging Recovery' For Comeback from 2008 Debacle
Darn. If only the midterm elections had been held after Friday's Employment Situation Report instead of before, the results might have been very different.
Apparently that's what the Associated Press's Liz Sidoti (pictured at the top right at this post's home page tease) wants us to believe, as she ended her borderline bitter take on the origins of Congressional Republicans' successful electoral comeback and takeover of the House of Representatives four days ago with this sentence:
Ten months later (after Scott Brown's U.S. Senate race victory in Massachusetts -- Ed.), victorious Republicans met to plan their transition to power in the House - just as it was announced that the economy created 151,000 jobs.
As if one good jobs-added number -- even with the unemployment rate stuck at 9.6% -- proves that the economic recovery is finally in high gear. Zheesh.
Along the way, Sidoti sought to create the impression that Republicans might have been rooting for the poor to non-existent economic recovery that has occurred -- as opposed to knowing that the history of large-scale stimulus-based recovery efforts has been one of failure, despite the AP reporter's lipstick-on-a-pig attempt in the last two of the excerpted paragraphs that follow:
GOP comeback strategy factored in lagging recovery
All but wiped out in 2008, Republicans groping for a comeback strategy determined there would be no swift return to economic health under incoming President Barack Obama.
They soon also agreed privately to oppose his major legislation.
Over the next two years, they criticized, attacked, voted against and then attacked some more as Democrats struggled to pass an economic stimulus measure, health care legislation and a bill to rein in Wall Street. Unemployment, 7.4 percent when Obama took office, soared to 10.1 percent, then barely budged for months.
On Election Day, those calculations made in Republican suites in the Capitol reaped dividends that must have seemed almost unimaginable even to the architects of their strategy: a gain of 60-plus House seats, enough to win a majority and end two years of Democratic dominance in Congress, as well as six new seats in the Senate.
... Many economists agree the economic stimulus, with its combination of tax cuts, aid to states and federal spending on construction and other areas, did create jobs. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told Congress in July that "we should maintain our stimulus in the short term" to strengthen the recovery and help reduce unemployment.
It was not a point Republicans chose to acknowledge.
This is funny. After almost two years of enduring the hogwash over jobs "created and saved" -- a phrase that was never used by Democrats and stimulus fans until after Barack Obama was safely elected (noted in December 2008 at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog) -- Sidoti's "many economists" (i.e., "economists whose opinion I like") insist that the stimulus created (some) jobs. By how many, Liz, and of what duration?
Reporter Ryan Kost at Sidoti's own news organization sharply jabbed at the Obama administration's stimulus-related jobs-created claim in July:
At the federal level, President Barack Obama has said the federal stimulus has created 150,000 jobs, a number based on a misused formula and which is so murky it can't be verified.
The "misused formula" is known as "Okun's Law." It says that "for every percentage point that the unemployment rate falls, real GNP (GNP is now called “GDP” — Ed.) rises by 3 percent." The trouble is that the late economist "cautioned that the law was good only within the range of unemployment rates—3 to 7.5 percent—experienced in that time period." The unemployment rate was already about 8.2% in February 2009 when the president signed the stimulus bill.
In any event, 150,000 jobs is only about 2% of the 8 million jobs lost since the end of 2007. Republicans "chose not to acknowledge" the supposed good effects of the stimulus because they were at best insubstantial and at worst totally made up.
Sidoti leans one more time on economists she likes later in her piece:
Republicans correctly foresaw that unemployment would rise, and that if the economy remained weak, Obama and Democrats would get little or no credit from the voters for having stopped a near collapse. The GOP would not have fared so well if voters had agreed with leading economists who said things would have been much worse without those actions, or if Obama's economic fixes had hastened the recovery.
Peter Raymond, in a marvelous piece at American Thinker, has an appropriate response to this claptrap:
... these same charlatans credit the recent multi-trillion-dollar spending orgy with preventing a depression even though they cannot produce a shred of evidence that it yielded any sustainable economic growth or created a single long-term job.
Sidoti does her best to portray GOP opposition to the president's initiatives as a Hail Mary pass flying in the face of proven conventional wisdom about how to fix and economy instead of as a reasonable strategy based on that conventional wisdom's utterly predictable failure. Nice try, Liz. Epic fail.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
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Comments
You know that when teh
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 10:06pm.
You know that when teh economy turns around due to teh GOP stopping the expenditure of large parts of the stimulous not yet spent and Obamacare being repealed that Obama will get teh credit he is being denied right now.
We didn't have to count on a
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:01pm.
We didn't have to count on a "lagging recovery" for our victories - a "lagging recovery" is what naturally results when liberal economic theories are implemented. All we had to do was to offer workable alternative proposals to Obama's economic policies when as, of course, they did not work. Why can't people just accept as a certainty that liberal economics never have worked and never will work?
that was my thought too,
Submitted by motherbelt on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:12pm.
that was my thought too, Chris...and exactly WHO produced the "lagging" recovery??
She's right tho, in a bass-ackwards way. If Obama and the Democrats had done what they promised to do, Republicans would not have won big.
So she really meant to say, they counted on Democrats to screw things up, and they didn't disappoint.
MB, It's like they're
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 12:37am.
MB,
It's like they're saying, "Dammit, those Republicans are always there with an alternative that works when our policies fail!". What is in their collective minds that make them think that huge spending, maximum regulations, more government control, ad nauseum is going to lead to a vibrant economy? Do they remember an instance when they led us out of a recession with their insane policies? All they do is distort the marketplace making it harder for businesses to recover from an economic slump.
Another thing tthat gets me is that though recessions are cyclical - that is, even under the best economic policies, recessions are going to occur - the Democrats blame the more conservative policies for them. Then, they get in and prolong the recession and make everyone even more miserable through their artificial means until the country brings in the GOP again to fix it (well at least semi-fix it) and the whole cycle starts over again. The Democrats have been a drag on the economy for years and years - why can't voters remember that for more than two years?
of course*
Submitted by cajun2 on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 10:32pm.
Millions of Americans losing jobs, savings, losing their houses so of course we wanted that to continue so we could elect Republicans. How intuitive of you Miss Idiot of the Week.
This is a drone that lost screeching
Submitted by hbnolikeee on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 10:44pm.
What a sweet sound. If we keep our eye on the target, there will be more drone.
The GOP would not have fared
Submitted by MidAmerica on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:00pm.
The GOP would not have fared so well if voters had agreed with leading economists who said things would have been much worse without those actions,You know this reminds me of something we JR high kids used to do. If we were standing next to someone on a balcony or a street corner,etc, we would suddenly grab the other person and pull them back fast, startling them and then we'd say "Man are you lucky. I just save your life. You were about to fall off the balcony" (or whatever the situation was) Jobs created or saved. Averted a depression. Stopped total financial collapse. Saved the banks. all stuff that cannot be proven true or false.
Someone point Liz to Dana Milbank's latest column
Submitted by Texndoc on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 10:59pm.
He's wondering whether Hillary would have been a better President. States she wouldn't have rammed through "Hillary Care" and the Republicans would have struggled for the 34 or however many seats they needed. He's probably right.
AP is sneaky...
Submitted by jimbo297 on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:10pm.
Here;s something I noticed in my state's (VT) gubernatorial race that involved some pretty shady actions on AP;s part. We have a nuke plant here that the commie crowd loooves to protest. By some strange law, the legislature has the authority to deny or approve the paermits to operate. Last winter, the commie democrats here voted to deny the nuke plant another 20 year permit--where we are supposed to get the 1/3 of energy that the plant provides was an apparently overlooked issue, but that's irrelevant--
So this nuke plant was a pretty big issue in the governors race, with the commie candidate attacking the republican, saying that he voted to poison children by supporting the relicensing and the commie claiming that he was interested in safety, yadayada. The nuke company, Entergy, is the villain in all of this too.
So then we have the election--a real nailbiter--and Dubie, the republican, loses by less than 5000 votes, out of 200,000 cast.
November 4th--the AP reports that Entergy is entering talks to sell the nuke plant to a different energy company, and the now governor-elect is said to support the sale and will revisit the licensing issue upon being sworn in! A complete game changer for one of the biggest issues of the election!
IMO AP suppressed the story until the election was over--maybe not noticable in a normal election, but in one so close it is as plain as the nose on our new governor's face.
150,000 jobs? lmao
Submitted by gfrrman on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:13pm.
this economy needs 10 fold that amount PER MONTH to get A@@es into the black on job recovery. 150,000 jobs doesn't cover the new people that are coming INTO the job market. Welcome to the planet of UUUUUURanus NEW econ 101, spun by the Obi NOT one Liz Zididoti......Liz?...Liz...do you have the frequency???
"Socialism is a philosophy of FAILURE, the creed of IGNORANCE and the gospel of ENVY"..Winston Churchill
The lefties continue to tell
Submitted by robert108 on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:31pm.
The lefties continue to tell the Big Lie that the crash of the mortgage market was due to anything other than the Dem policy of putting people into houses that they couldn't afford, in the name of "fairness". There is no cause and effect connection between any economic policy, either by President Bush or the Republicans, and the crash, but there is a clear one to be made between the market distortion of Dem housing and loan quota mandates since Carter and the coverup by Fannie and Freddie.
Since GOP couldn't oppose the
Submitted by eaglewingz08 on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:33pm.
Since GOP couldn't oppose the Obama agenda due to the filibuster proof Congress, that libtard reporter needs to find a new excuse and a new job since she's unqualified for the one she presently has. Sidoti must be italian for socialist hack or an anagram for "is a dodo". I also have no doubt that next week or next month these job numbers will be corrected downwards, but those revisions will wind up in the back pages of the newspapers so as to not embarrass our President.
Carp, carp, whine, whine.
Submitted by motherbelt on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:41pm.
Carp, carp, whine, whine. Get a grip, Liz!
Submitted by motherbelt on Sat, 11/06/2010 - 11:56pm.
Over the next two years, they criticized, attacked, voted against and then attacked some more as Democrats struggled to pass an economic stimulus measure, health care legislation and a bill to rein in Wall Street.
Nice try, Liz, but in spite of Republicans apparently attempting to derail everything in order to keep the economy down, the Democrats managed to pass a stimulus measure, managed to pass health care legislation, managed to pass a bill to rein in wall Street.
And still.......?
Would the results have been better, Liz, if those bills had passed with a lot of Republican votes?
Republicans didn't vote against it to stop it; they knew they couldn't stop any of it. They voted against it because they didn't want their names on it.
so motherb
Submitted by gfrrman on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 12:01am.
it was all Peaches/Herb(showing my age here) during the Bush years...right? You know, "He BETRAYED OUR COUNTRY", HITLER, HITLER ad nauseum....LIAR<LIAR, "The SURGE is a failure"(even before it started-Harry Reid). Party of Tolerance(Islam)my A@$!! WE have a reason, They just HATE ALL the time when they don't get their way, like the spoiled child in the corner. HATE HATE HATE. LEFT LEFT LEFT!!! With 60 votes in the Senate and that's ALL they have destroyed and with the MAJOR majority in the HOUSE and that's ALL they destroyed...THANK GOD!!!..help us all!! Just me....
G
so, motherb... it was all
Submitted by motherbelt on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 9:10am.
so, motherb... it was all Peaches/Herb(showing my age here) during the Bush years...right?
What on earth are you talking about?
Peaches and Herb---
Submitted by matthewdean on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 8:49pm.
were all lovey-dovey and things stayed happy.
Just like the press, libs, and Democrats treated Bush with kid gloves.
I think he forgot his /sarc notation.
MD
Hoping a recovery wouldn't happen is one thing.
Submitted by JeffC... on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 12:04am.
Knowing a recovery wasn't going to happen under these clowns is another.Republicans had to go out and point out that the recovery wasn't happening and they had a better recovery plan.
Of course, had the president listened to the Republicans instead of his cadre of University economic theorists who learned from Marxists and had no actual real world economic experience, maybe there would have been a recovery for which they could have taken some credit.
The democrat's and the MSM
Submitted by mostlymoderate on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 12:44am.
The democrat's and the MSM made G.W. Bush look like an evil, warmongering, murderer (their words) when in actuality, G.W. Bush did the only thing that could be done: declare war on terrorists before more 9/11's occurred.
Democrat's used these lies and that is the only reason they won so many political races in 2008. People are realizing this and THAT is why Republican's and the Tea Party are succeeding.
It is true that we
Submitted by jdhawk on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 1:00am.
It is true that we conservatives criticized, attacked and voted against dimocrat policies over the last two years. We did so because history has shown us that socialism doesn't work.
However, what is not oft repeated is those Republicans holding office in the Congress could have just as well have gone home for two years. They HAD NO POWER WHATSOEVER. With a filibuster proof Senate and an overwhelming majority in the House, the dimocrats could and did anything that they wanted. Where they were stunted or where they couldn't get legislation passed it was because of THEIR OWN MEMBERS disagreeing with the leadership in their respective chambers.
Again, Republicans did not stop because they could not stop the liberal agenda of the last two years. Where it was curtailed or stopped it was done so because of internal infighting of the dimocrat caucus.
Regarding the stimulus, it went largely to support massive increases in existing programs that we couldn't afford, new programs that we can't afford and to the states that were and still are broke. We are borrowing 43 cents out of ever dollar at the current levels of spend at the federal level. In the state where I live, North Carolina, and this is true in almost every other state in the union, we have a 3 billion dollar deficit in a 19 billion dollar budget. That works out to a short fall of 15 cents out of every dollar at the current leverls of spend in North Carolina.
The most effective and urgent need of the new conservative House and more equal weighted Senate when Republicans are seated 20 January 2011 is to ensure that no more additional federal dollars flow to the states. In that way, the states will have to bring their budgets in line with taxes collected. Given that the state congresses and state governorships are now majority Republican, those budget deficits can be brought in line by cutting spending NOT increasing taxes.
The most important thing that this will do is tell businesses that there aren't huge massive tax hikes at the state level waiting for them just when they start to crank up their businesses.
The second most important thing that the new Congress can do is renew forever the Bush tax cuts for all income levels. Again, this will incourage businesses, like that above, not to expect huge massive tax hikes.
The third most important thing that the new Congress can do is stop duhbamacare by defunding it. While the first two items can be done by playing hard ball with this president that last item is probably the best we can do because we can't get past duhbama's veto pen and reverse duhbamacare completely.
The above is the initial priorities that I think the new Congress ought to adopt. We'll wait and see what direction they take.
. .
May not be able to repeal
Submitted by RESTLESS 1 on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 1:37am.
But they can damn sure refuse to fund it. That's the promise from Boehner. Let's see if they follow through.
Can't find anything else in your post to argue against.
Lady.... the bottom line we
Submitted by jkwtrading on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 1:04am.
Lady.... the bottom line we hate the democrats..
I never want another democrat to enter into my life.
151k is a good number???
Submitted by RESTLESS 1 on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 1:31am.
From what I've seen, it takes 220k + to lower the unemployment rate. 8 million plus have been lost, and the left celebrates 151k???
Liberals do you have Questions?
Submitted by Retired Geek on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 5:12am.
Liberal Progressives do you want to know EXACTLY what happened in the 2010 Election?
Democrats are you wondering how America is ACCEPTING 'Hope and Change'?
Barack Obama supporters do you want to see the FUTURE for Obama's Policies?
The answer to all of these questions are answered for you and MORE in just 10 Seconds on my Blog.
http://thpatriots.blogspot.com/2010/11/retired-geek-demplosion-liberatio...
Barack Obama is Destroying America
Submitted by Retired Geek on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 8:05am.
Under the Barack Obama Administration and the Liberal Progressive Congress (since 2007) over 16 million jobs have been lost.
41.8 million Americans are on Food Stamps (1 in 8 Americans), it takes 7 working Americans just to pay for 'Food Stamps' for one.
This is the highest rate for Americans on 'Food Stamps' in American History.
NOTE: When Barack Obama took office 32 million Americans were on 'Food Stamps' - this is a 30.6% increase to 41.8 million.
The October 2010 Unemployment rate is 10.1% in the United States, despite the Barack Obama 'Stimulus' that 'Promised to lower unemployment and create jobs.
NOTE: When Barack Obama took office the unemployment rate was 7.70% - this is a 31% increase to 10.1%.
The number of people in poverty reached its highest level in 51 years under the Barack Obama Administration, the government defined poverty for a family of four in 2009 as an income of $21,954 or less.
13.2% of Americans had incomes below the poverty level in 2008, this jumped to 14.3% in 2009 - an 8.3% increase.
SOURCES: Bureau Labor Statistics, 2010 Census, Labor Department, New York Times, USA Today.
--------------------------
CBS Poll - "66% Of Americans view Barack Obama as an average or poor president, while another 31% say his backing of a candidate running for office will actually be a detriment."
Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/kyle-drennen/2010/10/07/cbs-news-poll-claim...
--------------------------
This is the Marxist 'Hope and Change' Barack Obama Promised.
This is the 'Fundamental Transformation' Barack Obama "Promised" for the United States.
Barack Obama where are the Jobs?
http://thpatriots.blogspot.com/2010/10/elko-mike-democrats-and-jobs.html
For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.
Her name
Submitted by jon_torlin on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 9:00am.
Her name says it all.
You re-arrange the letters in her last name and you get "idiots."
-Jon
a little discussed
Submitted by dmaley1714 on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 10:02am.
reason for the collapse was the government changing accounting rules to a mark to market accounting. This change destroyed Lehman Brothers saying that if you could not sell an asset it would have to bee marked to what the market thought of it on a particular day. Classic unintendeed consequence of govt interference.
156k is hardly a "good" jobs number................
Submitted by merly1 on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 10:29am.
It is fair at best, and these numbers were often ridiculed during W's era. It is amazing how the "bar" has been lowered during this Dem-run 2 year era. I guess that is why there is media bias.....
Read the data and tell me if I am wrong
Submitted by TheHistorian on Sun, 11/07/2010 - 5:23pm.
I just read the Bureau of Labor Statistics summary, and the while they put on a happy face, the statistics don't look like they are happy to me. See the link http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm and read for yourself.
Discouraged workers are up by 400,000 in the last 12 months (increase of 50%). The total number of people INCREASED from October, 2009 by 2 million, but the number of workers increased by only 50,000. So, of the increase in population, only 1 in 25 has a job? Is this more good news that I need to know? Why wasn't something like THIS reported, Liz? Maybe you can only cut and paste from whitehouse.gov? Better you should cut and paste from whitehouse.com. At least then you will know that the stuff cut and pasted is unadulterated garbage.
So, Liz, tell me: Where the happy news is again? If you guys ever quit shilling for the Democrats, expect them to fall to <100 seats in the House. Speaking of shilling, look at Obama's web page at whitehouse.gov. He again mouths the "happy news, but look at his curve at the bottom: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/11/05/president-obama-october-jobs-r...
He still is in the "it's not my fault" mode. What IS his fault is the horribly lackluster performance at 23 months after his election. By the time he got there, the recession had gone on 8 months according to his data. And based on his jobs data, it is nowhere near over.
Dennis Prager
When I see the letters A and P on a news story, I know ...
Submitted by jawebster1 on Mon, 11/08/2010 - 11:25am.
exactly what I'm going to get. Liberal 'talking points' or 'suggested' Liberal talking points.