Art Refice – 9/27/04

This page was last updated on September 27, 2004.

Rebuild America first; Art Refice; Beaver County Times; September 27, 2004.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Whatever happened to the hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs that President Bush and the Republicans claimed to have gotten back from the nearly three million that they lost?

“They must be out there with Bush’s weapons of mass destruction.”

[RWC] Democrats like to say we lost 2.7 million jobs since President Bush took office. What they don’t tell you is that we also generated 1.8 million new jobs. Therefore, using the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) payroll survey, we lost a net of 0.9 million jobs, 1/3 of that claimed by Democrats. I don’t claim this is cause for celebration, but even this doesn’t tell the whole story.

Each month the BLS actually conducts two job surveys, the household and the payroll surveys. Historically, the payroll survey underestimates employment because it doesn’t count the self-employed or those persons who work at home or on farms. When you use the household survey data, there has been a net employment increase of 1.9 million jobs since President Bush took office.¹ The household survey is also the basis for the official BLS unemployment figures. Now you know why Democrats like to quote the payroll survey.

Regarding WMD, they also “belonged” to Bill Clinton, John Kerry, the United Nations, et cetera.

“What the Republicans are now finding out is how right the Democrats were about the big gain. Most jobs were the Kmart and Wal-Mart variety that can’t support a family and now, for the first time in 50 years, the income of Americans fell.”

[RWC] The “lower-paying jobs” comment doesn’t hold water either. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan doesn’t buy the claim that new jobs are of lesser quality than lost jobs. Testifying before Congress, Greenspan said, “We’ve not been able to find a significantly meaningful change in the quality of the jobs being produced relative to the quality of jobs being lost for the nation as a whole over the last year.” Is that true for Pennsylvania? I don’t know. The real disposable income of American workers has increased every month since at least January 2003 with the exception of September 2003. Home ownership is at its highest point in history and climbing. These facts don’t support Mr. Refice’s claims.

“Also under this administration, Americans without health insurance rose by 1.5 million from 2003 to 2004. The number living in poverty rose by 1.3 million for the same period.

“This is the third consecutive year under Bush that this has happened, and I am sure when 2004 is over and counted that thousands more will be added to both lists.”

[RWC] The Census Bureau acknowledges its figure overstates the uninsured because the survey is not primarily designed to gather this data. If you went without insurance for even a few days between jobs, you are counted as uninsured for the entire year. This alone greatly inflates the uninsured figure. The number of persons covered by Medicaid is underreported. For some reason, the number of persons who report they are covered by Medicaid is lower than that shown in Medicaid records. Another reason is some persons eligible for Medicaid don’t sign up.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the chronically uninsured is roughly 9.1 million persons. Of that 9.1 million, approximately one million simply choose not to purchase health insurance because they don’t feel they need it.

How many chronically uninsured people want but can’t afford insurance? The CBO doesn’t have this figure. A lot of those persons surveyed complain about the expense, but there are no figures to say how many of the 8.1 million really can’t afford insurance vs. how many simply choose to spend their money on other things.

In any case, the number of chronically uninsured people who want but truly can’t afford insurance is less than 18% of the uninsured figure liberals like to throw around. That’s less than 3% of the population. Not having health insurance is not the same as not having health care. As with education, however, providing healthcare or healthcare insurance is definitely not a federal responsibility and should not be a responsibility of any level of government.

Regarding poverty, read The Data on Poverty and Health Insurance You’re Not Reading by Kirk A. Johnson, Ph.D., of The Heritage Foundation to cut though the hype.

“Adding to our problems is the lucrative no-bid $6 billion-plus contracts that were given to our vice president’s former company to help rebuild Iraq. It is being wrecked faster than anyone can ever rebuild it, and our deficit will only soar higher for a useless cause.”

[RWC] Are these the same type of contracts the Clinton administration awarded Halliburton in the same manner? Yes.

Mr. Refice, please provide proof of “[Iraq] is being wrecked faster than anyone can ever rebuild it.”

I don’t support deficits by any party, but was Mr. Refice so concerned in those years the Clinton administration had deficits?

“Useless cause?” Is helping a country down the road to democracy a useless cause? What about addressing our own security interests?

“If this administration plans on any rebuilding, I think they should start here in the United States with our torn-down workforce. It should be built up with good-paying jobs so that the income of Americans never tumbles again.”

[RWC] As I pointed out above, Mr. Refice is merely repeating Democrat talking points without providing any supporting data.

“In a few weeks, we will know if this administration accomplished enough to satisfy the voters, and if Bush will join the unemployed ranks.”

[RWC] Yes we will, and we’ll have four more years of anti-Bush letters from Mr. Refice.

1. Why Are the Dems Griping About Jobs?; Robert J. Barro; BusinessWeek; October 4, 2004. A subscription is required to access this web site.