Promises versus Reality on Unemployment

President Obama claims that he can't be held to his initial unemployment predictions on unemployment because the economy was worse than he thought. Putting aside that the president was constantly claiming that the economy was much worse than it was during the campaign and the early part of his presidency, it really don't matter whether you look at his unemployment predications in January or February 28th.

With the one year anniversary of the Stimulus, the accompanying figure shows how the economy has actually performed compared with Mr. Obama’s forecast. Using either Mr. Obama's January or February forecasts, the stimulus was supposed to limit increase in unemployment to being just slightly above the 7.7 percent that it started at in the beginning of the year. But instead of a 0.4 percent maximum increase in unemployment, the rate soared by 2.4 percentage points. It soared by more than an entire percentage point over what was supposed to have happened if nothing was done to help the economy.

Rush Limbaugh takes Biden to task for blaming everything on Bush.

RUSH: Now, listen to this. Joe Biden was on Larry King Alive last night. And Larry King, following right along with the questions they gave him, said (impression), "Are you optimistic about the jobs bill?"

BIDEN: By the spring I think people are gonna begin to have more confidence in the policies we've -- we've put in place. I think you're going to see net creation of jobs every month. Now, it's not going to be seven million jobs in the next six months. It's a depression for millions of Americans. But we took this job knowin' we were facing a gigantic hole we were going to fall into.

KING: Inherited it.

BIDEN: We inherited it.

RUSH: Yeah, "We inherited it." You know, why don't they do something: Take the New Madrid Fault where I live -- and Obama, that's a New Madrid, Missouri, a short little stop at Cape Girardeau. There's an earthquake fault there. Been predicting the big one there just like the San Andreas for a long time. I think what Obama could do is maybe Obama and Biden have a joint, big, wallapaloozing ceremony in honor of President Bush and name the New Madrid Fault after him so it becomes "Bush's Fault." Because this seems to be the only thing these people have to say. Now, what Biden's talking about here, "The United States..." This is State-Controlled AP. "The United States is likely to average 95,000 more jobs each month this year, while personal savings will remain high as credit remains tight, according to a White House report released [today].

"The Council of Economic Advisers also trumpeted the $787 billion economic stimulus package, which it said has saved or created about 2 million jobs. In a message to Congress, President Barack Obama pointed out that the economy he inherited was losing 700,000 jobs each month but now says 95,000 jobs will be produced net every month starting this spring." Now, by this time I have a simple question. Who cares what Obama or his people say about the economy and what they predict in the future? They have been grossly wrong time and time again! Who cares what they predict? Here's the truth: The American left, the liberals, keep attacking the regulatory system that was in place before Obama was elected; when in fact it is mostly their regulatory system. They complain about inheriting deficits when in fact they pushed for even bigger deficits when Bush was president, including Senator Obama.

Senator Obama voted for every spending bill that came down the pike! He cannot distance himself from all of this. In fact, he and the Democrats were asking Bush to spend more. . . .