Spin Doctor Throws Knuckleball

This knuckler doesn't spin at all. It is wishful thinking and living in a fantasy world.

Ploufe Says Unemployment Won't Matter to Re-election

I'm a strong believer in the economic principle that a government cannot "create" a job. They can offer make-work, like having the yard-birds paint the rocks white along the pathways, but it is free enterprise and the private sector that creates a vibrant labor market. A low tax structure, reasonable regulatory environment, and confidence that your capital will not be confiscated by the government tomorrow is what creates jobs.

This President can't create jobs no matter how hard he asserts that he can. He can only stifle growth and he has seemed hell-bent on doing that.

Ronald Reagan, another president Obama is sometimes compared with, was reelected in 1984 when unemployment was 7.2 percent. Obama isn’t likely to see a number that low.

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics, predicts the nation will have added 110,000 jobs in total in June, with 125,000 added in the private sector. Hiring by the public sector will continue to fall.

The economy would have to add 350,000 jobs every month between now and December 2014 to get back to the pre-recession low of 5 percent unemployment, last seen in December 2007, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).

Reagan saw that kind of growth after the recession of the early 1980s, and it helped him win reelection by a comfortable 18 points. 

The important thing to remember about that period is that Reagan took office with mortgage rates at 18% and inflation over 22%. Within 18 months he passed the largest tax rate reduction since JFK despite being hampered with a hostile Democratic-controlled Congress. They gleefully spent the newly generated revenue, but the nation was working and once again confident in the future.

Reagan also stood up as proud to be an American, confident in the correctness of our direction and proud of our moral standing in the world. He rebuilt the military, drove the Soviet Union into bankruptcy and collapse, and left a legacy that will be difficult to equal.

Obama has shown not the slightest inclination to move at all in those directions. Mr. Ploufe's spin isn't spinning. It is wobbling erratically toward the plate and will be very hard to catch.