Move Along...There's Nothing To See Here...

That's the message of the White House and its full-time propaganda wing, the mainstream media, in regard to the single biggest issue facing most Americans today: the economy.

They're in full gutsy swing over Obama's manly-man decision to take out Osama bin Laden. So much so, in fact, that most people aren't really hearing much about what's going on with the economy. Let's take a few moments to correct that, shall we?

First of all, unemployment is back up to 9% despite about 244,000 jobs being added in April. Huh?? If you're like me, you don't see how those numbers go together. Here's an explanation:

The economy added 244,000 jobs but the unemployment rate went up to 9 percent. Is this a political problem for President Obama — as the economy improves, more enter the workforce and the unemployment rate looks horrible?

It’s actually even worse than it looks. The unemployment rate went up because of a divergence of the surveys, not an increase in the number of people looking for jobs. In the household survey, which determines the unemployment rate, we lost 190,000 jobs in April, and only 15,000 new people entered the workforce. Hopefully, the two?????? surveys will both indicate robust job growth soon, but not this month.

Hot Air also throws in this bit of trivia:

What was the highest unemployment rate, post-Great Depression, for which an incumbent President won re-election? 7.2% in 1984.

If there was any recovery going on -- personally I don't believe there was -- this is a sign of that recovery slowing down. This is why the Obama administration is desperate to get the economy off the front pages as often as possible. The more people are thinking about the economy, the less likely Obama (and many other Dems with him) will get re-elected.

But it doesn't just stop with unemployment. Remember all those dire warnings about real estate going into a double-dip recession? Now we've got it. World food prices are shooting up partly due to the fact that the U.S. is now experiencing inflation because of Obama's policies, and dragging the rest of the world along with it. Tighter budgets are forcing California schools to consider shortening their school year (though given what the schools in California teach, that may actually be a good thing). Pennsylvania school districts are considering 4-day weeks. About 1 in 7 Americans receive food stamps. And just wait'll you hear the latest on energy. It deserves its own post and is coming soon.

Anyway, these are the results of liberal economic policies. Their solution? More taxes, this time on the mileage you put on your car:

Among other things, CBO suggested that a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax could be tracked by installing electronic equipment on each car to determine how many miles were driven; payment could take place electronically at filling stations.

And you thought driving was expensive now, and that government was already too intrusive...just wait, it gets better!

All of this has earned Obama new low poll numbers on the economy, with Americans disapproving of his policies almost 2:1.

The real question is: how is the GOP responding? It's kind of hard to tell. They sound good...

How much room will Boehner have in negotiating [on the coming debt ceiling debate]? Declaring himself “a regular guy with a big job,” Boehner declares tax hikes “off the table.” Lauer tries offering a misleading statistic to force Boehner to defend the Bush tax cuts, using unemployment numbers from June 2001 and comparing them to today’s rates. The tax cuts to which Democrats object passed in 2003, not 2001 (which lowered the top rate to its current 35% and reduced capital-gains tax rates), and unemployment at the time had gone into the 6% range. It resulted in an explosion of job growth that only ended in 2008 with the housing bubble’s collapse.

Boehner has declared tax hikes “off the table,” but says everything else will be up for discussion — everything else necessarily being spending cuts, especially in entitlements.

Mm-hmmm. But we've heard all this before, the last time being just a few weeks ago when the GOP swore they'd settle for nothing less than $100 billion cut out of the budget...right before settling for about $350 million cut out of the budget. Am I the only one skeptical of their ability/will to see this tough talk through? If they did, it would be a major surprise, albeit a welcome one.

I suppose it's progress to even get them talking this way. After all, on the other side of the debate is Barack Obama, who is too busy inviting rappers who glorify cop-killing and the assassination of George W. Bush to the White House for parties to even do that much.

We'll be lucky to survive another year and a half of this bunch; even if we do, it will be years before we clean up the mess they've made, and that's only if we get exactly the right people into office for the next two or three election cycles.

God help us!