Obama’s Daily Economic Briefing
[Guest post by DRJ]
A year ago, President Obama added a Daily Economic Briefing to his calendar to ensure he is “up-to-date and in-the-loop” while “Treasury, the Fed and his economic advisers work to pull the nation out of recession.”
How’s that working out? Judging by this report from ABC News’ Jake Tapper, not so good:
“President Obama veered off script – and away from the facts – when he spoke about the stimulus bill today in Nashua, NH.
“Now, if you hear some of the critics, they’ll say, well, the Recovery Act, I don’t know if that’s really worked, because we still have high unemployment,” the president said. “But what they fail to understand is that every economist, from the left and the right, has said, because of the Recovery Act, what we’ve started to see is at least a couple of million jobs that have either been created or would have been lost. The problem is, 7 million jobs were lost during the course of this recession.”
Um, it’s not true that “every economist” has said the Recovery Act has saved or created two million jobs.”
Tapper’s post has several examples, like the fact that Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers chair Christina Romer has quoted the 2 million jobs number. But others like Dan Mitchell at the libertarian Cato Institute, J.D. Foster at The Heritage Foundation, and Harvard University labor economist Lawrence Katzare are more skeptical. Even the OMB’s Peter Orszag has told his staff to stop claiming jobs “saved or created.”
Maybe this is what happens when Obama doesn’t pay attention to his Daily Economic Briefings and deviates from his prepared text. Or maybe this is what happens when the briefers only tell Obama what he wants to hear.
— DRJ
more likely Barney Fife only hears what he wants to hear….
that’s one of the privileges of office when you are “Ear Leader”.
redc1c4 (fb8750) — 2/4/2010 @ 2:54 pmI blame the teleprompter.
Mike K (2cf494) — 2/4/2010 @ 2:55 pmObama is the pitchman for a spending spree.
SteveG (909b57) — 2/4/2010 @ 2:59 pmNothing he says on the economy makes sense, and hasn’t since he decided that stimulus = spending trillions.
It’d be great if Obama would take responsibility for his decisions and reactions to the problems he inherited.
There were other alternatives and Obama should own his choices
EVERY F@CKING ECONOMIST. EVERY LAST ONE.
JD (cc3aa7) — 2/4/2010 @ 3:05 pmUnprecedented 😉
Pons Asinorum (ffeb5e) — 2/4/2010 @ 3:06 pm“I won.”
Jack (e383ed) — 2/4/2010 @ 3:08 pmNow that was funny, Pons.
By every, I suppose Barcky meant every economist that he has talked to, or received stimulus funds to send out said message.
JD (cc3aa7) — 2/4/2010 @ 3:16 pmAw, we finally disagree JD.
I think he means every economist in the universe.
Pons Asinorum (ffeb5e) — 2/4/2010 @ 3:32 pmDude uses some funny math.
Dmac (539341) — 2/4/2010 @ 4:17 pmOk, so he doesn’t know how to pronounce ‘corpsman’. He doesn’t know, off hand, how many states we have, doesn’t know that they speak German in Austria, hasn’t heard of the tea party movement, didn’t know that ‘they’ had snuck stuff into the health care bill, didn’t know about the decision to try the pantie bomber as a civilian, does not know about the details in the bill, cause that isn’t his ‘strength’, seems to think that “saved or created” is a valid metric, has funny ideas about the good will of foreign leaders, probably thinks that Islam really is a religion of peace, and I am sure any readers could add more examples of Obama’s ignorance and naivete.
Yet somehow Obama is a brilliant intellectual. A con law professor, genius and really, really smart.
I think that part of the narrative is no longer operational.
Jack (e383ed) — 2/4/2010 @ 4:45 pmMaybe this is what happens when Obama doesn’t pay attention to his Daily Economic Briefings and deviates from his prepared text.
When one doesn’t know squat about the subject being discussed, sticking to the prepared text is the wisest course of action.
Blacque Jacques Shellacque (efef8c) — 2/4/2010 @ 5:02 pmTwo million jobs saved according to who? Seven million jobs lost not including the 824,000 they forgot to tell the people about. How many billions of dollars have the lost out of the $786 billion? I’ll bet a local school will be willing to send them a 3rd grader to do the math (more accurate)for them.
Scrapiron (996c34) — 2/4/2010 @ 8:12 pmMakes me think of the joke about how can you tell when someone — in this case, Obama — is lying? Whenever his lips are moving.
Do332 (411533) — 2/4/2010 @ 8:16 pmIt’s just Obama lying again. He does it as reflexively, and with as little guilt, as he breathes.
Beldar (1fe385) — 2/4/2010 @ 10:03 pm