This is yet one more poll that ought to worry Democrats:
USA Today/Gallup poll shows that 59% of Americans say President Obama’s proposals to address the major problems facing the country call for too much government spending, and 52% say Obama’s proposals call for too much expansion of government power.
I’ve written before about the glowing coverage Barack Obama receives despite the consistently terrible economic news. Today provides yet another example:
Fewer than expected file for unemployment
The number of Americans filing initial unemployment claims fell sharply last week, while those filing ongoing claims rose to another all-time high, according to government data released Thursday.
There were 565,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended July 4, down 52,000 from a revised 617,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said.
It was the lowest number since January and was below the consensus estimate of 603,000 from economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
Once again, Barack Obama gets a favorable headline: rather than stressing the all-time high in ongoing claims, it emphasizes a surprising fall in new claims. Eventually they reveal one reason that new claims have fallen:
Initial claims typically spike in July as automakers idle certain manufacturing plants, and the Labor Department adjusts its data for such seasonal factors.
However, many plant closures occurred early this year, said Mark Vitner, an economist at Wacovia Economics Group.
On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, initial claims were 577,506.
“The improvement in first week of July was exaggerated by the timing of plant closures,” Vitner said. “This is something we’re going to be dealing with throughout the month.”
Thank goodness America’s auto companies have been failing! Without that, new unemployment claims would have been much worse!
George Bush would have killed for coverage like this. Considering the surprising strength of the economy in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he’d be posing for Mount Rushmore if the press had treated him the way they are treating Obama:
Job market shows some improvement
…Automatic Data Processing, a payroll-processing firm, said private-sector employers cut 473,000 jobs in June, a 2.5% improvement from the revised 485,000 drop in May.
The June job cut total was more than expected. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of 394,000 jobs last month.
However, the May tally was revised lower. ADP originally reported a loss of 532,000 private-sector jobs in May…
Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, argues in Salon today that President Obama’s brand of economics is “revolutionary.” Only an Ivy League educated lefty economist (i.e. - Keith Olbermann graduate of Cownell could not pull this one off) could have the intellectual gall to argue that the Obama budget is both “conservative” in the details, yet “revolutionary” in scope. The left is gearing up for a public relations campaign (some would say a propaganda war) to sell the Obama budget and it seems as if the left will use every catch phrase possible to sell this plan.
Reich argues that Obama’s brand of economics is ”an economic philosophy exactly the opposite of the one that’s dominated America for more than a quarter century.” If by economic philosophy Reich means capitalism, then I think conservatives agree that Obamanomics would move the United States away from the free market to expand the role of government in health care, environmental issues and tax policy. The era of big government is back and Robert Reich is cheerleading from the sidelines.
