BCT Editorial – 9/22/10

This page was last updated on September 22, 2010.

Fundamental change; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 22, 2010.

Some of the following are several years old, but I suggest you read the following papers.

Understanding Poverty in America (Backgrounder #1713); Robert E. Rector and Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D.; The Heritage Foundation; January 5, 2004.

Understanding Poverty in America: What the Census Bureau doesn’t count; Robert E. Rector; The Heritage Foundation; September 11, 2009.

Poverty and Inequality; The Heritage Foundation.

The Data on Poverty and Health Insurance You’re Not Reading (WebMemo #556); Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D.; The Heritage Foundation; August 27, 2004.

The editorial says “the Great Recession … is now officially over.” Not exactly. “The Great Recession … [was] officially over” in June 2009, 15 months ago.

It’s understanding the Times would attempt deception about when the recession allegedly ended. You see, the Times supported the Democrat/Obama so-called stimulus spending on the promise it would stem the recession and unemployment. With the recession allegedly over in June 2009, it means the stimulus programs had no role in ending the recession because almost none of the spending had taken place. That was failure #1 and not a surprise. As I noted in a February 2009 critique, “the Congressional Budget Office reported that ‘doing nothing’ [which isn’t really doing nothing] would be marginally better than the porkulus bill.”

The second failure was unemployment. We were told the spending should keep unemployment below 8%, but instead it shot up to 10.1% by October 2009 (four months after the recession ended) and is currently still 9.6%, 15 months after the recession’s end. It’s been reported the unemployment rate is closer to 16%-17% when you account for people who gave up looking for a job.

So after all this, the spending did nothing but put us about $1 trillion further into debt.

None of this should be a surprise because we saw it before. Consider the following statement by Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary during the Great Depression. Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939, Sec. Morgenthau said, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot.” Unemployment never got below 9.9% before the U.S. entered World War II.