RUSH: New claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose last week, bouncing back above the key 400,000 level…” “Unexpectedly” is now back in the news reports, while core producer prices clumbed faster than expected in March, government reports showed on Thursday. “Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 412,000, the Labor Department said. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims slipping to 380,000.” Gallup is out there. Gallup is out there with two polls. Gallup says, really, the inflation rate is at 10% right now (it’s not five) and Gallup says really the unemployment rate is at 10%, not 8.8. It isn’t rebounding. It isn’t recovering, and here is evidence.
And then there is this from USA Today: “More Americans Leaving Workforce… Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010…” Now, let’s keep a couple of things in mind here. One of the ways the regime has been able to get an 8.8% unemployment rate is to simply say that there are fewer jobs available. The universe of jobs has shrunk, I think, by 2.2 million, and everybody asked, “Well, why did they go?”
“Well, they just disappeared!”
“Oh, okay. They’re gone?”
“Yeah, yeah, they’re gone.”
So with 2.2 million fewer jobs to fill, obviously the unemployment rate is going to not quite be as high, because the universe is lower. Okay, so they monkey around with that, maybe. They jimmy the number. But let’s get to the meat and potatoes of this story, ’cause this is not good for our country, folks. “The share of the population that is working fell to its lowest level last year since women started entering the workforce in large numbers three decades ago, a USA Today analysis finds. Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010, the lowest rate since 1983 and down from a peak of 49.3% in 2000.”
Now, the good news is, as I just ‘splained, fewer people in the workforce lowers the rate of unemployment, at least according to the way the Department of Labor figures these things. However, folks: “Bye-bye, greatness. Bye-bye, superpower. Bye-bye, world economic leader. Here 45.4% of Americans had jobs. A majority of Americans do not work. Let’s also be honest about something else: The vast majority of those not working are being paid nevertheless. They are being paid not to work. They are getting unemployment compensation. There are probably multiple benefit programs they are able to tap into.
Is there somebody that wants to defend this? Bring ’em on! Does somebody want to defend 45.4% of Americans having jobs, or a majority of Americans not? Does somebody want to defend the fact that just 66% of men in this country have jobs? Bring forth the regime people that want to defend that. Let’s debate this. They want to defend this economy? They want to defend the tax increases they now propose that are going to further erode prosperity? Folks, let there be no doubt: This is being done purposefully. This is not good intentions gone awry. This is not faculty lounge theory not quite working out. We’re witnessing a destruction.
Here are the numbers: “Only 45.4% of Americans had jobs in 2010…” USA Today says, “The bad economy, an aging population and a plateau in women working are contributing to changes that pose serious challenges for financing the nation’s social programs.” Oh, that’s what this is about? That’s what this is about: How are we going to pay the people who don’t work if so few of us are working? This is it, that’s right — and this is what Obama said yesterday in this despicable example of a speech, that what made us great… I hope you remember this; if you don’t, I do, and I’m telling you now.
He said yesterday that this country finally achieved greatness with the invention, creation, what have you, of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. That’s when we became a great country. So did I reel you in? USA Today is wringing their hands: Oh, woe is us! Only 45.4% of people have jobs. (sobbing) Only 66% of men have jobs. Oh, my God, what are we gonna do? And the reason this is a problem is because it “poses serious problems for financing the nation’s social programs.” That’s what’s important, you see: Financing the nation’s social programs. That’s it. There’s no other concern that we have here. That’s why we want more people working, so more people can pay taxes to pay for other people not to work, ’cause, after all, where are the Democrats going to get their voters?
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RUSH: Now, as you know, folks, all politicians are on the public payroll. Most of them need the salary and pension and medical benefits. Too many of them have minimal private sector experience of the kind that involves the creation of wealth and jobs. In fact, a lot of politicians — a lot of elected officials — think more like a welfare recipient than a self-sufficient individual. So, most of them pander. Too many of them lie. They want to keep what they have. They want to stay on the payroll. But the difference between many of them and welfare recipients is, they use their positions and power to attack our way of life, to steal from us, to control us, to demean us while they are the ones that are doing the theft.
They’re the ones living off the public dole.
This is why, by the way, the Founding Fathers never thought about career politicians. They thought about citizen legislators, particularly in the House of Representatives. People who have done something. People who after a bit will chuck it all and go back home and return to their life’s work. People who would return to their communities, live among the some people they represented. But today too many of these politicians are career oriented — well, career politicians — and their constituency is not where they’re elected from but where they operate from, and it’s a big difference. Most of them have no intention of putting in a short career as a politician and then returning home.
“Anxiety over President Obama’s shift to the political center is threatening to alienate the White House’s liberal base. As Obama prepares Wednesday to outline his deficit reduction strategy…” That was the story from yesterday, but this is what led up to it, and it’s one of many stories like this that’s in the stack. Let’s take a review. Let’s look at some of Obama’s great speeches. During the campaign we had the race speech. What did he do during the race speech? He threw his grandmother overboard. What did he say about her? She’s “a typical white person,” scared of black people. A typical white person. That’s who raised me.
He also made a show of throwing his man of the cloth overboard, the Reverend Wright. Then we got the Cairo speech. The Cairo speech: Outreach to Islam, stage one. Stage two was turning NASA over to an outreach to Islam. Then we got the Tucson speech, and we know that that was a campaign appearance. They printed T-shirts. They had an agenda. They had a slogan. Then we had the demagogue speech. The demagogue speech is what we got yesterday. Now, problem-solvers do not behave this way. Leaders don’t speak the way Obama’s speaking, and everybody is now raising questions about his leadership ability and does he even have any.
Even people on the Democrat side. I had a couple sound bites, I think it was from yesterday, but I didn’t get to them. David “Rodham” Gergen was openly concerned about the lack of leadership that we’re getting from Obama. So, okay, leaders don’t speak this way, problem-solvers don’t, but community organizers do. Community agitators speak the way Obama did yesterday. Obama’s mission is to wreak havoc on the US private sector and the individual. He’s hell-bent on doing it. Nobody can convince me otherwise. Too much time has gone by. There’s too much evidence in. The evidence that his way of fixing it (which is what he claims he wants to do) makes it worse is clear, and he’s doubling down on it.
Now he’s promising a trillion dollars in tax increases? That doesn’t fit with reviving an economy, which is at the precipice of recession. He’s doing it with demagoguery. He’s doing it with threats, intimidation. He knows what he is doing. He invited Ryan and those Republicans to sit in the front row and be humiliated and insulted. He knew. He has chosen a — you know, for lack of a better word, folks — a thuggish approach to achieve his ends. But there’s no reason to be afraid of it. You keep looking at me like I’m strange when I tell you that. Are you afraid of it? I don’t understand how we lose these debates. Is there anybody…? I know the Democrat can bring an endless parade of people, but who in their right mind really wants to defend what’s happened?
The Democrats cannot defend their policies. They do not, in fact, when they’re brought forth to do so. They don’t defend what Obama’s done. They keep talking about nefarious things like we can’t afford to stop, or we’ve got to keep plugging away for the future. They never, ever defend what they’ve done. In truth what they do is besmirch and impugn us and our ideas. They ignore, and they’re not held accountable by the press, but they don’t and they can’t defend this. There’s nobody that can defend what they’ve done. Not intellectually and certainly not in a way that would win a debate. This guy’s been in office barely two years. He’s an outsider.
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RUSH: Here’s Gene in Cleveland. Gene, I’m glad you waited. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Well, good afternoon, Rush, and thank you for taking my call.
RUSH: You bet, sir. I wanted to expand a bit on the statistics you gave last hour about 45% of the population currently employed. I’ve done a lot of research on this in the past and using their own US Department of Labor statistics website, if you look closer at that statistic, you’ll find that at this point in history about half of the 45% — perhaps a little more than half — are actually employed by the United States government in one capacity or another.
RUSH: Right.
CALLER: And if you start peeling back those statistics and looking at it, even if you used 300 million as our population, 45% of that is roughly, what, 130 some million?
RUSH: Close to that, yeah.
CALLER: Half of that again, now we’re talking about roughly 60 some million, close to maybe 70 million people working to support not only themselves and their families, but another 230 million people who are either not old enough to work or unemployed or for whatever reason we have.
RUSH: Well, you’re right. You’re right.
CALLER: People have a tendency to forget that the government has no money. They obtain their operating capital from the private sector.
RUSH: Or they print it, they borrow it, but you’re right.
CALLER: Or they print it. (laughing) Absolutely right. Well, that’s a scary statistic to me. Is that now more than half of the people that are actually working are working for the government, and at what point are we gonna say, “Hey, enough is enough”?
RUSH: Well, it’s always been said that even in the most productive of societies, 5% are pulling the cart with and 95% are along for the ride.
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