Hoovered

February Job Growth Surprisingly Weak

Some recovery. The latest job figures show only 21,000 jobs created in February--and revise the figures for December and January downward by a combined 23,000, negating any growth last month. It's got to offend all the people looking for jobs, and all the people who have given up looking for jobs, that the Bush Administration continues to pretend that it believes the economy will create 300,000 jobs each month this year, which would dig Bush out of his Hoover-hole of job loss sometime just before the election.

It's not going to happen; there has been no action taken that would bring about such a result, no effort on the part of Bush or his party to lessen the pain of this "economic situation"--whatever it's called, since the recession is over, right?--for anyone but the very wealthy folks who got the bulk of his tax cuts. What if some of that tax money were in state coffers, allowing cash-strapped states not to lay off teachers and other public servants? What if the tax cuts were weighted toward those who need the money and would spend it on goods and services, putting it into the economy and igniting growth? Would the employment picture be quite this ugly? Would we be mortgaging quite as much of our future for today's yacht production and wealth-hoarding? It is an arrogant and uninterested administration indeed that causes this much pain and suffering to the country and refuses to contemplate even the possibility that the policies it has advocated and instituted might be a mistake.