Just a reminder. The Republicans, energized over their November victories, went to Washington and immediately went about securing tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires as priority #1, all while blocking any attempts at job growth legislation and continuation of unemployment benefits. Meanwhile, this is happening:
In a jolting surprise to the economic recovery and market expectations, the United States economy added just 39,000 jobs in November, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent, according to the Department of Labor.
November’s numbers were far below the consensus forecast of close to 150,000 jobs added and an unchanged unemployment rate of 9.6 percent.
More than 15 million people remained out of work last month, and 6.3 million of them have been unemployed for six months or longer.
Private companies, which have been hiring since the beginning of the year, added 50,000 jobs in November. Most of those increases came in the form of temporary help, where 40,000 jobs were added, and in health care, with an additional 19,000 jobs.
Retail jobs declined by 28,000 in November, while manufacturing, which had showed some strength earlier in the year, lost 13,000 jobs. Government jobs dropped by 11,000 in the month.
A competent political party would be able to make the Republicans pay a political price for this and be forced to make very uncomfortable votes. Does anyone know where I can find a competent political party?
Michael
You could have the most competent political party on earth, and if its message is blanked by noise, it won’t matter.
Tax cuts and traitor negroze will be the message 24/7.
tom p
China and Russia come to mind… they both have political parties that get things done.
Xenos
Christmas parties? Sure, lots of them. Competent parties? Never seen one.
lol
Kind of hard when the refs are intent on pinning the blame on you no matter what.
arguingwithsignposts
I really wonder who these forecasters are, and what their rate of success at prediction is? Are they pundits on leave or something?
J
“Does anyone know where I can find a competent political party?”
Time Travel?
Zifnab
The Republicans seem to be exceedingly competent when it comes to getting elected by default in a down economy. Of course, the Democrats were mastering that trick back in ’06 and ’08.
Their policies may vary widely, but it seems like the only selling point either party seems able to muster effectively is “at least we’re not the opposition!”
Comrade Dread
Any party but the Labor party in the UK comes to mind.
Or at least, their conservatives seem much saner.
jeff
Well if the tax cuts had gone through a few months ago, then wealthy people would be secure enough about the future to start adding jobs. At least that’s what everybody told me at Thanksgiving when I was visiting my Republicans.
Morbo
The Greens! fapfap
WyldPirate
Krugthulu points that out in his column this morning. He points most of the finger of “incompetence” towards 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Quite long knives Krugman drug out and he was merciless.
Buck stops at the address above. Leaders have to lead.
Cat Lady
Isn’t this what Real Americans(R) voted for just a month ago? Why do you think competence will triumph over willful ignorance?
LGRooney
Make your own party!
WyldPirate
@arguingwithsignposts:
I saw some speculation on my idiot box this AM that “some economists think” think the data is wrong. That the “green shoots” in the other data indicate what should be a different employment picture.
Anecdotally, I have a cousin who works for Verizon as a field tech. He said that their office just up and fired their whole office staff–who were permanent employees-and hired in their place, fewer part-time and tower paid temps.
These companies are squeezing the blood out of their turnip workers. It generates a nicer quarterly report donchyaknow.
Sly
In a country that lacks any kind of bureaucratic legislature. The only way the tax cut issue moved forward in the House was because that chamber is only slightly less Byzantine than the Senate.
Pig Tralin
Can we just send the Democrats the way of the Whigs and start a replacement? Screen the name for schoolyard tauntability, pick an awesome animal totem, and start kicking ass?
PurpleGirl
I thought I read somewhere, forget where, that 93,000 jobs were added… I guess there was a typo in the story. A typo in the statistics report? Wishful thinking?
ruemara
You won’t get a competent party until you get a competent electorate. It’s ridiculous. Republicans get what they want because their people will do anything to get what conforms to their ideology. Democrats will not. People in the middle sort of mush through life and can’t be bothered because politics just isn’t that important to them, ya know?
MBunge
Uh, didn’t the House Democrats pass a whole bunch of progressive friendly legislation that died in the Senate? Didn’t a whole bunch of House Republicans vote against those bills? They didn’t pay a price for those votes, did they?
Mike
Madeline
I have a client whose business is booming, in an industry that is booming. And this is a very steady industry. He has been looking for a relatively small amount of financing to expand his business and add jobs for 11 months now and no one wants to give it to him. He’s basically being told nobody can make enough money on him because he can only offer a nice, secure, steady rate of return.
Shawn in ShowMe
You’re welcome.
J
@Pig Tralin: I actually thought that after the Republicans’ unalloyed record of mendacity, criminality and incompetence in the Bush years, that, if there were any justice in the world, that was the party that should have gone the way of the Whigs. Pretty naive. Instead the Republican party has the stubborn vitality of a deadly life form in a science fiction movie.
danimal
The Rent is Too Damned High Party has some promise.
Michael
@MBunge:
Kicked to the curb on the 60 vote bit in the Senate, slaughtered by a unified GOP phalanx.
Hell, more than 50 Senate dems would have voted for them, too, and the O man would have signed them into law.
I’d say that it has far less to do with the competence of the dems than it does with the intransigence and nihilism of the rethugs.
Where is the Weather Underground when we need it?
General Stuck
We all get a little homesick around Christmas time.
Poohsbunny
No, I don’t and that’s a big problem isn’t it?
Corner Stone
In a relevant question to the topic of your post, if not the post itself, why aren’t we asking about the fact that NEITHER party is pushing forward legislation that will, in fact, help increase the employment picture?
MBunge
@Michael: I know why the bills never became law. My point is, the dynamic Cole is talking about existed in the House. Dems passed progressive legislation and Repubs voted against it, yet they paid no political price for doing so. That indicates to me there’s something wrong or incomplete with his formula for electoral success.
Mike
PeakVT
We need filibuster reform on January 3. . . 2009. January 3 2011 is the next available date. Call your Senator.
Suck It Up!
like the senate vote on saturday and the one that took place yesterday?
lol
So after numerous and certain predictions by our very serious betters on the Professional Left that Obama was going to sell us all out to the all-powerful “Catfood Commission”, it looks like the deficit commission is going to pack it up without even voting on their recommendations.
On to the next poutrage, I guess.
Church Lady
I’m trying to wrap my mind on how you blame the November jobs report on the Republicans. Did I somehow just dream that the Democratic Party has been in control of both the Legislative and Executive branches of the government for the past three years? Am I wrong in my belief that the Republican party will not take control of Congress until January? Am I wrong in my expectation that even after the Republicans take control of Congress in January, the Democrats will still control the White House and the Senate?
When do the Democrats get blamed for something bad with the economy?
Andrew
Well, most of the rest of the democratic world isn’t doing a whole lot better. Europe (outside Germany) is, frankly, fucking up their economy even more than we are. And even Germany’s strength is largely coming via beggar-thy-neighbor.
Kristine
I live in a conservative area of northern IL. A nearby local paper’s featured question of the day concerned the tax cuts–should they be extended for all, or limited to those earning $250K and below.
Of the 6-7 folks they asked, all but one said that the tax cuts should be extended for all. One elderly man parroted the talking point that it’s the the rich who create jobs, not the middle or working classes. One wonders why we don’t have those jobs now given that the cuts have been in place for so long, but who needs logic when you have ideology.
Another pro-tax cuts for all, a middle-aged woman, said that everyone had to get by with less money these days, and the gov’t should, too.
I realize that these results run counter to the national polls on the matter, but I did notice that no one was talking about the deficit here. Not one mention, even though that’s supposedly conservatives’ primary concern. These are the folks who voted for serial resume embellisher Mark Kirk, “where’s my house? not in my district” Bob Dold, and Joe Walsh, who couldn’t keep his own financial house in order, thus making him the perfect person to straighten out ours.
Sometimes all I can do is tell myself that at least I have a job with health insurance.
A Thousand Faces
@Church Lady:
Your concern has been noted. Maybe when they said no to every goddamn thing democrats have tried to do for the past two goddamn years! Maybe when they created an asinine movement focused on destroying any “sockalism” that would get us out of this rut! Jesus christ you’re obtuse. 49-51 majority.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Corner Stone:
I’m guessing that this might have something to do with the problem that our electorate’s understanding of macroeconomics is only slightly more advanced than the idea that if we sacrifice the King, then the rains will return and the crops will grow, ala Frazer’s The Golden Bough.
Fuckin’ economy, how does it work?
General Stuck
@lol:
I think this time, the poutrage is permanent. But hope i’m wrong.
ian
Canada.
We have five major federal parties, any one of which would do better than your two (even the Liberals)
We’ll send you the Bloc Quebecois. Left wing, whipsmart, principled but willing to compromise. They’ll show you what a real states rights party would look like.
Linda Featheringill
@Andrew:
Exactly.
Max Peck
How would the dems get this message out? The left has no media except blogs and people who read these blogs aren’t the ones who need to hear it.
Its over. They won. Its time for guerilla tactics.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@MBunge:
This. We gave one of histories best Speakers of the House a working majority and she fucking delivered….legislation to a Senate run by Neville Chamberlain.
Harry Reid knows how to campaign like a beast, no doubt about it but that clearly hasn’t translated into being an effective Majority Leader no matter how fucked up the Senate rules are.
JC
MBunge,
This always gets forgotten. The Senate really pissed away the once in a generation opportunity for liberal democrats to enact, and try, actual liberal legislation.
And now, it seems, the clear dysfunction of the Senate, as exploited by the Rethugs, will be ‘fixed’, just in time for the Rethugs in 2012, to become a majority in the Senate.
Good times.
D-Chance.
So a Republican majority who WON’T BE SEATED UNTIL NEXT YEAR is to blame for this past month’s miserable Obamaconomy? Yeah, riiiiiight…