September’s unemployment numbers are out and there were over 200,000 more lost jobs. A top economist who tried to give congrats to the administration said our job loss numbers now are more in line with a normal recession. He seems to think we have hit a plateau with over 200,000 lost jobs in September, because it is an improvement from a few months earlier when job losses were almost 600,000 in a month. Many are still unhappy with the new numbers because congress was promised unemployment would not go past 8% if they passed the stimulus bill, but they were wrong. Unemployment is now at 9.8%, the highest it has been in 26 years, but even many argue that number. The numbers of people who have stopped looking for work have gotten so big and are not counted as unemployed because they are not reporting to the unemployment office. With those people included the number rises to around 14%. Joe Biden (Vice President and Stimulus Cheerleader) said this is not a straight line to recovery and there would be peaks and valleys. He claims that the stimulus had already created 1 million jobs. That is a tough number to swallow when there have been 3 million jobs lost since the stimulus package was passed.
There have been talks about a second stimulus package, but President Obama has said he is not interested in one at this time. With around 500 billion remaining to be spent from the fist one, I think many agree with him. Conservatives are discouraged with the current stimulus because there is no money allocated to help small business owners with tax cuts. With the unemployment rate going up and small businesses employing 70% of the workforce they feel that small business owners are the ones who need money to encourage job creation in this country.
If we look back when President Obama first began tackling the economic crisis in the U.S. he said these words. “Only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe.” I enjoy looking back even farther when President Ronald Regan was faced with a similar crisis. He said, “In the present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” We have history to show us what Capitalism and American ingenuity can do for an economy. History will soon teach us what an out of control government can do for one.