The ignorance and blind sycophancy of Bill Maher knows no bounds.
On HBO's Real Time Friday, the man who proudly gave a million dollars to Barack Obama's Super PAC said on national television, "Who cares what somebody in his administration wrote down on a piece of paper and predicted?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
RICK LAZIO, FORMER CONGRESSMAN (R-NEW YORK): We have a 30-year low, a generational low in terms of people participating in the workforce. The reason why unemployment is not 11 percent like it would be if you measured where worker participation was when Obama took office is only because people have bailed out of this economy. They have given up.
BILL MAHER: Well that's not true.
Actually, it is true. But a man with his own television show who believes himself to be smarter than everyone on the planet either doesn't know it or is willing to misrepresent it:
LAZIO: Most of the jobs that have been created are part-time jobs. And let me, forget about what I'm saying, okay, because people, but use Obama's own words. Obama’s the one who promised when he did the stimulus bill that unemployment would be 5.7 percent. Obama’s the one…
MAHER: No.
LAZIO: …in his 2010 budget that said the economy would be 4.5 percent. It has been, every year…
MAHER: First of, who cares? Who cares what somebody in his administration wrote down on a piece of paper and predicted?
LAZIO: Because the American people who are out of work care. People who can’t get credit to start their business care.
MAHER: He never said that.
LAZIO: It was in his budget.
MAHER: Take off the red hat for one second.
LAZIO: No, but it’s not, it’s his own words.
MAHER: Just take it off for one second.
LAZIO: But it’s his own words.
As is typically case, Maher was wrong.
As most thinking people in this country know, on January 9, 2009, the chairwoman designate for Obama's Council on Economic Advisers, Christina Romer, and Joe Biden's chief economist and economic adviser, Jared Bernstein, at the request of the president-elect published "The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan."
This was a sales piece to promote Obama's stimulus package.
It included this infamous chart predicting what would happen to the unemployment rate if this bill was passed:
If you look at the lower blue line, you'll see that Obama's economic team predicted that if his stimulus bill was passed, unemployment right now would be nearing five percent.
The Labor Department reported Friday that it's currently 7.9 percent. But...
"Who cares what somebody in his administration wrote down on a piece of paper and predicted?"
