If it weren't for a shamelessly dishonest, hyper-protective liberal media, the American people would know, unanimously and without doubt, that Obamanomics is killing American jobs. There is no silver lining in the December jobs numbers.
Experts and analysts were expecting this latest jobs report, released Friday, to show 200,000 new payroll jobs in December, but there were only 74,000, which is 37 percent of the goal. Not 90 percent, not 80, not 70, not even 50 percent. Just 37 percent.
If these abominable numbers had occurred under George W. Bush's watch, the GOP would have had hell to pay for decades. But liberal presidents always get a pass in the form of wildly far-fetched excuses and rationalizations for their failed policies.
Attentive minds, however, will not be fooled. As the liberal media live by the dishonest rationalization, so they must die by it, as well. With the help of sympathetic economists, they have been whitewashing Obama's perennially anemic economy as being in "recovery" for 52 months now.
"Recovery" is supposedly an economic term of art indicating that economic conditions are improving at an acceptable pace, but if professional economists insist that their discipline requires them to describe what we've seen the past 52 months as a "recovery," then the term is meaningless. But it gives cover to Obama's media enablers — and, of course, to Obama. After all, if we have been in a recovery for almost all of Obama's tenure, doesn't that mean that he long ago lost the right to credibly claim that this "mess" is Bush's fault? Here again, his media megaphones have done his dirty work.
Those who insist on calling what we're seeing now a recovery should be aware that we're aware that 74,000 jobs are not even enough to keep up with America's population growth. They should also know that we know that more than four years into this "recovery," some 4 million Americans have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks, which is almost twice the number we saw at the worst point of the most recent recession.
Now let me tell you about the other "shoe" of this story, which we are not waiting to be dropped — because it has already dropped with a resounding thud. Though the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.5 percent to 6.7 percent in this glorious 52-month period, 100 percent of this decline — not 90 percent, not 80, not 70, not 50, not 37 percent but every single molecule of it — was the result not of a growing job market but of 7.4 million potential workers leaving the workforce.
That's right; under Obama's "hope and change," 7.4 million people have simply lost hope and quit looking for work. Last month alone, 347,000 workers dropped out of the labor force. We have the lowest labor participation rate in 36 years.
Now take off that shoe and examine the dirty sock. If we adjust Obama's numbers to the labor force participation rate when the evil Bush left office, the unemployment rate has actually increased , from 9.7 percent to 10.9 percent, during Obama's blockbuster recovery.
Next, we anticipate two more shoes falling in the relatively near future that could have a substantially negative impact on the jobs market. Actually, it would be more accurate to describe them as heavy boots.
First, we have the ravages of Obamacare and what it is doing to destroy jobs by increasing the costs and risks of employing people and injecting untold uncertainty into the entire economy. Second, we will experience the continued assault on jobs by the compassionate left's (and feckless right's) extension of unemployment benefits.
Let's face it. Even though the liberal media have eventually been forced to reveal the dark side of Obama's jobs numbers, they are not going to be quick to tell you about the uncompassionate side of the ruling class's endless extension of unemployment benefits. And the Obama administration, which is interested far more in redistributing America's income than in improving the jobs picture, will never mention it.
So couldn't we beleaguered, constantly maligned-as-extremist conservatives expect that the political party that supposedly represents our principles, the GOP, could bring to the public's attention that what may masquerade as compassion in the short term is anything but compassion in the long term? That extending unemployment benefits would ultimately destroy American jobs? There's little serious debate about this.
Why can't Republican Party leaders get on the horn and tell the American people that what we need is not extending unemployment benefits ad infinitum but an end to Obama's growth-suppressing policies of increased spending, taxes, regulations and Obamacare?
Is it really that hard for Republicans to articulate the message of economic growth instead of offering liberal-compassion lite?
Or does the party establishment even believe in this message — in its platform — anymore? Inquiring minds are entitled to know.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book, "The Great Destroyer," reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
