I want to thank Jerry Haslip for his predictable responses to my letters regarding economic policies. I was especially encouraged that Jerry disputed very little. When he did, he provided no objective counterargument, only opinion.
1. I said government had shrunk under Obama in context of government workforce. Jerry says: “flat out false.” The truth: 660,000 government jobs have been cut. That’s unquestionably smaller government. Under GW Bush: Over 1 million government jobs added, providing his only net new jobs while president.
2. I said the Dow’s doubled. Shortly after Obama’s inauguration, March 2009, Dow was 6547. Now it’s over 14,000. I’ll let readers do the math. Plus they can check their 401K’s.
3. I said trickle down Reaganomics has been, in sum, a failure. Multiple nonpartisan studies show tax cuts for the rich don’t create jobs. They create income inequality. Middle class tax cuts work. It’s true Reagan “created” many jobs – 16 million in 8 years – but he used massive deficit defense spending to do it. It’s not true that he surpassed “liberal” administrations – Clinton added 22.7 million in 8 years; Carter – 10 million in only 4 years.
4. Jerry claims “History will show that the American economy flourished early during the George W. Bush Presidency…” An erroneous claim by any measure. Bush had a net loss of 13,000 jobs in his first 4 years. Unemployment went up. Clinton’s surpluses were squandered.
Jerry doesn’t dispute over 1 million net private sector jobs created under Obama (now up to 1.2 million after February’s jobs report).
Since 2010 our economy’s added 5.7 million jobs. Unemployment has dropped to 7.7%, lowest since December 2008 (pre-Obama). Job gains are broad-based. Wages are now rising faster than inflation. This is all good news. We can feel the economic tide turning after the Great Recession collapse. I hope Jerry’s doing better too.
Van P. Keele
Hamilton