Articles
Obama Administration Spin on Stimulus Spending Will Not Improve Unemployment Rate
06.19.09
by Penny Wise
Vice President Joe Biden is well known for his verb gaffes, and now inept spin doctor can be added to the list. During a June 14 appearance on Meet the Press, he told host David Gregory and the American people that the federal government stimulus spending plan has stopped unemployment from worsening. When asked about unemployment, Biden said, “It’s not getting worse.” Wishful thinking, Joe, but it ain’t so.
The Obama administration’s economic adviser Dr. Christina Romer asserted in January that stimulus plan spending would keep unemployment at 8 percent and then it would decrease. In reality, the unemployment rate for May was 9.4% and continues to rise. Even more troubling for working Americans is that Harvard professor Jeff Frankels reports that “the length of the average work week fell to its lowest since 1964!” and “the labor market does not quite yet suggest that the economy has hit bottom.”
With the FDIC reporting that $13.9 trillion of federal government stimulus money is available to combat the economic downturn, it might be nice to learn that some of the stimulus spending was actually helping working Americans by saving and creating jobs. Instead, it has primarily helped banks that are too big to fail, insurance companies making losing bets, and the failing automakers.
That being the case, it would be reassuring to know that the key players in the Obama administration at least acknowledge the worsening impact of the downturn on working Americans and admit that the massive federal spending did not keep unemployment at 8%, as it claimed would happen when selling the stimulus package to the American people.
Vice President Biden’s comments on Meet the Press are political spin at its worst, and Mr. Gregory should be applauded for taking the vice president to task on his inaccurate statements about an improving economy. The vice president, especially in light of the fact that President Obama selected him to oversee the implementation of the stimulus spending, should know, like everyone else in the Obama administration, that unemployment is on the increase and hours worked are declining, all while federal stimulus spending continues to increase.
The vice president’s failure at “spinning” the unemployment rate must have been a disappointment at the White House because it forced President Obama to contradict Mr. Biden’s views just two days later. In an interview with CNBC, the president said that he expected the unemployment rate to increase beyond the 9.4% rate for May. (George Mason University Professor Robin Hanson has a post titled “Blame Games” that explains the politics of this type of spin.)
The Obama administration’s attempt to “spin” the unemployment rate on Meet the Press is unsettling at a time when American workers need reassurances about their jobs. Also unsettling is President Obama’s contradiction of the vice president when the vice president’s spin failed. But most unsettling is that massive federal deficit spending by the Obama White House and Democrats in Congress has not had any positive impact on the unemployment rate, even though the vice president tried to claim that it has.
This is just one more example that it is politics as usual for the Obama administration, and that should have every American who has a job or who is looking for a job spinning with anger.
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