Here's my response to Evan Shircliffe's letter which I have emailed to the Bedford Gazette this evening.
Bedford Gazette March 5, 2012
Box 671, 424 W. Penn Street
Bedford, PA 15522
Attention: Letter to the Editor
Re: Sources for my facts
Editor:
Responding to all the “stuff hurled
against the wall” by Evan Shircliffe in his letter of March 3rd would require
an entire page of the Gazette so I’ll just provide the sources for the facts in
my letter that he challenged. I’ll leave it to him to do the same for all of
his numbers.
First let me state that apparently much
of the data we both proffered originated from the same source, the Bureau of
Labor Statistics (BLS), which begs the question, why are the numbers so
different? Could it be that one of us can’t read charts and graphs correctly or
is it possible that there is some selective massaging of the data? Hummmm? So
to justify my facts, rather than just site the BLS, I will provide the internet
address for each of my claims and let it up to the reader to view the site and
decide the validity. This approach, while definitive, is cumbersome since web
addresses are sometimes long and prone to possible errors when transferring the
link to newsprint.
January Job Creation
- Shircliffe’s first challenge is to my claim that “240,000 jobs were created
last month (Jan ’12)”. Here’s the BLS address for that data.
Quoting directly from that page, “Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 243,000 in January, and the unemployment rate decreased to 8.3
percent. Job growth was widespread in the private sector, with large employment
gains in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and
manufacturing”.
And a few paragraphs below that
statement BLS continued, “Private-sector
employment grew by 257,000”.
Therefore my claim of 240,000
jobs created was actually under-stated.
Unemployment Rate
– Shircliffe then claims my statements about unemployment are “outrageous”
while also admitting that he is not good in math. He then sites the BLS and
states that when Bush left office the unemployment rate was 7.2%. However when I look at the data
it clearly shows that unemployment was at 8.3%
on February 2009 (Bush left office 1/20/2009), but here’s the BLS page. You
decide. http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
Both the chart and the graph depicted clearly
indicate that beginning in December of 2007 unemployment was 5.0% and rising --
exploding might be a better word -- due to the Bush crash and long before Obama
took office, let alone before any Obama policies had a chance to take effect. Shircliffe is correct in stating that unemployment
did rise to 10.0% in October 2009, but he failed to mention that it has been on
a steady slow decline to the current level of 8.3% since then. Therefore, in
Bush’s last 14 months in office unemployment increased by 3.3% (5.0 to 8.3). And in the first 9 months of
Obama’s term it increased by 1.7%
(8.3 to 10.0) and in the next 24 months unemployment has decreased back to 8.3%
which is exactly where it was when Bush left office. The overriding factor to remember is that the
Bush economic policies of wars coupled with unprecedented tax cuts for the
wealthy had created the worst recession since the Great Depression of the
1930’s. That was the Bush legacy left for Obama to deal with.
Auto Industry Jobs Saved
– Next on his list was where did I get my facts on the bailout of the auto
industry saving 1.5 million jobs. Well I think my source will certainly go
unchallenged since it came from the November 17, 2010 edition of the Wall
Street Journal which is a pillar Republican conservatism and owned by Evan’s
hero Rupert Murdoch of Faux News fame. Here’s web address and a brief excerpt
from the article.
“No matter what happens with Government
Motors, the taxpayer intervention in the auto business appears to be a win for
Americans, a new research report asserts. The Center for Automotive Research said
today the government’s bailout of the U.S. auto industry spared more than 1.14
million jobs last year alone, and prevented additional personal income losses
of nearly $97 billion combined for this year and last. Another 314,400 jobs
were saved this year thanks to the $80 billion (note:
$17 B by Bush and $63 by Obama) in
taxpayer lifelines extended to GM, Chrysler, and Chrysler.”
So
let me do the math for Evan since that apparently is not his strong suit – 1.14
million plus 0.314,400 equals 1.454 million which I rounded off to 1.5 million.
At
the time of its passage, the Republicans were adamantly against the bailout and
advocated letting the industry go bankrupt. Even to this day they continue to
argue against all evidence that the bailout was a success, that they were right
to oppose it and that the Americans involved didn’t deserve the help they got
in keeping their jobs, their homes, their careers and their dreams. To Evan’s
credit, I must admit that the total number of jobs that would have been lost is
not verifiable, since it’s impossible to prove a negative. The alternative
would have been to let bankruptcy occur, lose the industry and all the jobs and
then count the casualties. Great logic! That’s the only way we could have
generated the “verifiable metric”
that Evan requires.
Faux
News – Shircliffe took exception to my referring to his favorite
source of information as “Faux” News and sites a poll done by the Policy for
Public Polling (PPP) which determined Fox News as being the most trusted name
in news. Well here is the web address to PPP’s January 18, 2012 poll results.
Quoting directly from the published
results here is what we find –
“PPP's 3rd annual TV news trust poll finds
that Fox News tops the list for both the source Americans trust the most and the one they trust the
least”.
But wait a minute! Evan didn’t mention that in his letter.
Imagine that! Below are the results of the poll which also demonstrates why, as
Evan claims, Fox has a higher viewership than CNN and MSNBC combined.
“Fox is the most trusted TV news
source for 34% of voters, followed by PBS at 17%, CNN at 12%, ABC News at 11%,
CBS News at 8%, MSNBC at 5%, and Comedy Central and NBC each at 4%.
Fox is also the least trusted TV
news source for 34% of voters, followed by Comedy Central at 16%, MSNBC at 15%,
CNN at 11%, ABC News at 7%, CBS News at 5%, PBS at 2%, and NBC News at 1%.
Republicans meanwhile don't trust
anything except Fox New.
Democrats trust everything- except Fox
News
Independents are with the Democrats.
They trust everything except Fox News”.
So while the Republicans are viewing
only ONE network the Democrats and Independents combined viewing is split over SEVEN
networks.
I could go on and address the other
issues that Evan raises, but at this point I suspect the Gazette will not print
my letter in its entirety because of the length.
Frank Miller