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themp
Citizen
Username: Themp
Post Number: 517
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - 11:26 pm: |     |
Bush Officials Offer Cautions on White House Jobs Forecast
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: February 18, 2004
RICHLAND, Wash., Feb. 17 — Treasury Secretary John W. Snow distanced himself on Tuesday from the Bush administration's official prediction that the nation would add 2.6 million jobs by the end of this year.
That prediction, which is far more optimistic than that of many private sector forecasters, was part of the annual economic report released last week by the White House Council of Economic Advisers and was immediately echoed by Mr. Bush himself.
But on a tour through Washington and Oregon to promote the president's economic agenda, Mr. Snow and Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans both declined to endorse the White House prediction and cautioned that it was based on economic assumptions that have an inherent margin of error.
"I think we are going to create a lot of jobs; how many I don't know," Mr. Snow said, adding that "macroeconomic models are based on a lot of assumptions" and are "not without a range of error."
Unemployment and the nation's surprisingly sluggish pace of job creation has become a significant political weakness for Mr. Bush, who is on track to be the first president since Herbert Hoover to end his first term with fewer jobs than when he started.
The nation has lost about 2.5 million jobs in the last three years, and job loss has been acute in the Pacific Northwest. Unemployment is 6.8 percent in Washington and 7.2 percent in Oregon, compared with 5.6 percent nationwide. The aerospace industry has laid off tens of thousands of workers, as have technology companies tied to the collapse of the stock market bubble and older manufacturers.
Mr. Snow and other top administration officials are on a two-day tour through both states this week, traveling in a luxurious bus to promote the beneficial effects of Mr. Bush's tax-cutting plans and spread the word that the economy is humming once again.
But while economic growth has been very strong for the last six months, the pace of job creation has been much slower than in previous economic recoveries. After losing about 2.8 million jobs since late 2001, the nation started to add jobs only last fall and has been adding them at the rate of about 100,000 a month.
Most economists say the nation needs to add about 125,000 jobs a month just to keep up with increases in the number of workers, and that it needs to add more than 200,000 a month over a sustained period to significantly reduce the unemployment rate below its current 5.6 percent.
To create 2.6 million jobs by the end of this year, the nation would have to add more than 230,000 positions each month from now until January. But many if not most economic forecasters expect a more modest upswing, largely because the nation's productivity has been climbing so rapidly that companies have been meeting higher demand without adding workers.
Mr. Snow and Mr. Evans are traveling around the Northwest in a bus that has been used by touring performers like Bon Jovi and Styx. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and Hector V. Barreto, head of the Small Business Administration, are on the tour as well to promote the administration's job-training programs and assistance for new companies.
The group announced new grants at a center in Spokane that acts as an incubator for high-technology start-ups, then held a roundtable meeting with women business owners in Richland.
Mr. Snow and Mr. Evans said the economy was still recovering from the combined blows of a recession, the collapse of the stock market bubble, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But they said the fundamentals of the economy all pointed to strong growth for the foreseeable future and faster job creation. Brushing aside complaints about the federal government's large budget deficit, which the White House predicts will surpass $500 billion this year, Mr. Snow renewed the administration's call for making President Bush's tax cuts permanent, a move that would cost about $1.5 trillion over the next 10 years.
Still stinging from criticism by Democrats about comments by a top White House aide in support of "outsourcing," or shifting jobs to low-wage countries, Mr. Snow said those remarks had been "misinterpreted" and were not meant to condone the loss of American jobs.
I don't believe it either. Is it "fuzzy math"? what is "fuzzy math", anyway? Seems you used to hear a lot about it. |
themp
Citizen
Username: Themp
Post Number: 524
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 1:26 pm: | |
Feb. 18, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House backed away Wednesday from its own prediction that the economy will add 2.6 million new jobs before the end of this year, saying the forecast was the work of number-crunchers and that President Bush was not a statistician.
Bush, himself, stopped short of echoing the prediction.
"I think the economy's growing, and I think it's going to get stronger," said Bush, the nation's first MBA president. He said he was pleased that 366,000 new jobs have been added since August. "But I'm mindful there are still people looking for work, and we've got to continue building on the progress we've made so far."
The administration's refusal to back its own jobs estimate brought criticism from John Kerry, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.
"Now George Bush is saying he's going to create 2.6 million jobs this year alone -- and his advisors are saying, 'What, you didn't actually believe that, did you?' Apparently George Bush is the only person left in the country who actually believes the far-fetched promises he's peddling," Kerry said in a statement.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan, asked repeatedly about the forecast, declined to embrace the prediction which was contained in the annual economic report of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.
Unemployment and the slow pace of job creation are political liabilities for Bush as he heads into a battle for re-election. Despite strong economic growth, the nation has lost about 2.2 million jobs since he became president.
The jobs forecast was the second economic flap in recent days for the White House. Last week, Bush was forced to distance himself from White House economist N. Gregory Mankiw's assertion that the loss of U.S. jobs overseas has long-term benefits for the U.S. economy.
Asked about the 2.6 million jobs forecast, McClellan said, "The president is interested in actual jobs being created rather than economic modeling."
He quoted Bush as saying, "I'm not a statistician. I'm not a predictor."
"We are interested in reality," McClellan said
He said the annual economic report was based on data from about three months ago. Since then, Bush has said that things are improving.
The issue arose at the White House after Treasury Secretary John W. Snow and Commerce Secretary Don Evans declined to endorse the jobs prediction and said it was based on economic assumptions that have an inherent margin of error. They spoke during a tour through Oregon and Washington to promote the president's economic agenda.
"The number-crunchers will do their job. The president's job is to make sure we're creating as robust an environment as possible for job-creation," McClellan said. "That's where his focus is."
"This is economic modeling. ... some have said it would be lower," he said.
"The president has said he is not a statistician. He is most concerned about whether people are hurting and able to find jobs," McClellan said.
"The economy is moving in the right direction ... but there is more to do," he said.
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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 2004
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 4:55 pm: | |
I bet just about any math is fuzzy when you got a C average. |
ligeti
Citizen
Username: Ligeti
Post Number: 82
Registered: 7-2002
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 18, 2004 - 7:44 pm: | |
President Bush distanced himself Wednesday from White House predictions that the economy will add 2.6 million jobs this year, the second embarrassing economic retreat in a week...`I think the economy is growing,'' Bush said. ``And I think it's going to get stronger.''
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, said, ``President Bush is rapidly becoming the permanently surprised president. He is surprised that every economic prediction that he and his administration make does not pan out.''
"I'm not very analytical. I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." President George Bush, June 4, 2003
What a lightweight this guy is.
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