Even Obama’s Make-Believe Jobs Are Not Real

In general, I am a hopeful and optimistic person when it comes to everyday life, relationships and life’s trials. However, I have become very skeptical and cynical when it comes to politics and political leaders (of all stripes). Since George W. Bush “suspended his free-market principles” to save the free-market economy by launching the huge government, anti-market, “bail-out” of Wall Street, my skepticism has grown exponentially.

By the way, I remember telling my daughter that principles are not abandoned in the midst of a crisis. In fact, the opposite is true, principles guide us in times of crisis. We don’t abandon what we believe, about how things work, at the moment when we are in need of our principles to guide us through the said crisis. We only abandon what we, at that moment of crisis, believe will not save us from the pending harm. Thus, principles abandoned are no principles at all.

Back to my growing political skepticism. When our current president speaks I struggle to give him the benefit of the doubt regarding the veracity of his growing list of economic “facts.” Here is another list of lies pronounced by this administration regarding the “success” of the “stimulus package.” Make sure you click on the interactive map to review the truth about the “jobs created or saved” claim.

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell at Cato-at-Liberty on November 16th, 2009.

The White House recently began claiming that the “Recovery Act” had “created or saved” 640,000-plus jobs. This turns out to have been a political mistake, in part because even sympathetic reporters understand that the “jobs saved” measure allows for creative accounting. But the White House also erred by providing (supposed) details about the jobs that were created. This made it very easy for reporters and other curious people to do a bit of fact checking, which has generated a spate of stories showing that the White House’s numbers are wrong, even using make-believe methodology. The Washington Examiner has put together a very useful interactive map which links to many of the news reports debunking the Administration’s fraudulent numbers.