NYC Letter: The Accidental Truth X -- Not Our Job

Day 927 of CHOPE

Q: Sort of to follow on that, why should Americans believe that the White House can create jobs when the unemployment rate has been so stagnant and the record is sort of anemic?

Well, the White House doesn’t create jobs.

Jay Carney,
letting the cat out of the bag
PRESS BRIEFING
WASHINGTON August 4, 2011 (White House)

This will be surprising news to the boss.

We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved* or created over 150,000 jobs and provided a tax cut to 95 percent of all working families.

Mr. Obama,
bragging on his largely unspent $787B stimulus plan
claiming 150,000 undocumented jobs created or saved*
PRESS CONFERENCE
WASHINGTON April 29, 2009 (White House)

And the bossling.

(A) We need desperately to get this economy moving. We've got to create more jobs, ah, now. ... The most important thing that I want the taxpayers to understand though, is that we, these jobs that we're going to be creating are designed for not only the immediate impact of that job, but for the future prosperity of the country. ... It has to create jobs immediately.

(B) All in all we're going to be creating somewhere between 100 [scil., 100,000] and 200,000 jobs next month, I predict. ... Even some in the White House said, 'Hey, don't get ahead of yourself.' Well, I'm here to tell you, some time in the next couple of months, we're going to be creating between 250,000 jobs a month and 500,000 jobs a month.

(C) Thus far, we have allocated over $620 billion of the Act, and as a result, the Recovery Act is responsible for somewhere between 2.3 million and 2.8 million jobs that were either saved* or created.

Joe "Hi-Q" Biden,
(A) then-VP-elect and soon-to-be stimulus policeman,
emphasizing the Obama presidency's top priority
WASHINGTON December 23, 2008 (ABC News)
(B) predicting "Recovery Summer"
PITTSBURGH April 23, 2010 (WaPo)
(C) doing the numbers on "Recovery Summer"
WASHINGTON June 17, 2010 (White House)

Team Barry has been bragging on its feeble job creation since day one of Mr. Obama's $787B -- since operationally mushroomed to $862B -- shovel-ready government giveaway.

Government job creation is a an article of faith in the liberal catechism.

Alas. The government in the persons of Team Barry has not created the millions of jobs promised. It has not capped unemployment at the promised 8%. Far from net job creation, it still runs a staggering jobs deficit. So as with all Team Barry disappointments, Mr. Carney has thrown government job creation under the bus -- where you can also find Constitutional proprieties, signing statements, the ban on lobbyists, transparency, fiscal stewardship (and this), the closing of Guantánamo, the rejection of the Military Commissions Act, and "dumb" protracted wars.

CHOPE.

Not our job. Not our problem.

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* There is no metric for "saved" jobs (and this).