Has anyone else noticed this little bit of rhetorical legerdemain from the Obama camp ?
President-elect Barack Obama has expanded his goals for a massive federal stimulus package to keep pace with the increasingly grim economic outlook, aiming to create or preserve at least 3 million jobs over the next two years.
The more aggressive target, up from 2.5 million jobs set a month ago, comes after a four-hour meeting last week in which Obama’s top economic advisers told him the economy is now expected to lose as many as 3.5 million jobs over the next year. Obama was told that could drive unemployment, currently at 6.7 percent, above 9 percent, a figure not seen since the recession of the early 1980s.
Create or preserve.
That’s signficant, I think.
Obama’s not saying that his policies will create 3 million new jobs. Heck, he’s not even really saying that his policies will create a single new job. As long as the Obama Administration can say two years from that they have “created or preserved” three million jobs, they can claim a victory.
Given the numbers that they’re relying upon, that essential means that unemployment can be at exactly the same level it is today, and Obama will be able to claim he’s “preserved” 3 million jobs.
Change you can believe in, or just a massive shell game ?
I think the answer’s obvious.
The way that I translate “preserve” is that if there are still 3 million people working in this country after he becomes president, it is a victory. I think that we all assume that every single person will become unemployed. He’s saying everyone, but 3 million people, will lose their jobs.
BO claims a goal but provides utterly no metric by which to measure it. So what ever number are employed, BO will claim that somehow three million more people are employed than without his plan.
Then BO’s plan does have a probability of success if you are union certified lightbulb changer of union which strongly supported BO. Then on other boot, non-union plumbers in Ohio are in for hard times.
[...] was something I noted back in December when the details of Obama’s plan were just starting to come together: Obama’s not saying that his policies will create 3 million new jobs. Heck, he’s not even really [...]