Betty McCollum’s Tricky Chart on Jobs

Betty McCollum’s Tricky Chart on Jobs

At a recent town hall on Jobs, Betty McCollum made a presentation showing yet another “tricky” chart.  This was a creation from the office of Nancy Pelosi that has become a favorite for attempting to portray the Obama administration as having successfully handled jobs and the economy.  But does it reflect where we really are for jobs?



http://mccollum.house.gov/images/stories/Statements2010/9-27-11%20slide%202.png

http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ce
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost

First lets look at reproducing the chart from public data at the Bureau of Labor Statistics(http://www.bls.gov/cps/). The information, and the charts included below (titles added, when obtained from the BLS site it is comes across as a table of data with a crude chart), come from the BLS website, and go back a little further to look at some more historical context in the Clinton and Bush years.  This will look at the dot com bubble, the 9/11 strike, and the home mortgage bubble bursts,  and the recovery aftermath.

Table 1 includes the spike for the census temporary work hiring in early 2010.

The trickiness involved is that this represents a differential change (first derivative, for those who remember calculus) chart. In addition Betty McCollum’s (Pelosi/Obama) chart is also somewhat smoothed to try to try to make the impact stronger. So to get the correct understanding of what the unemployment situation is we need to do an accumulated sum (integration) of the data.  Or we can simply request the real unemployment data from BLS. The chosen statistic was the monthly change in the number of employed persons, so the corresponding chart will be the number of unemployed persons.

This chart 2, above, is unadjusted for population growth and thus has an intrinsic increase built in. Though for relatively short periods you can make reasonable comparisons.  So we will switch to looking at the unemployment percentage/rate to normalize for population.  The major two peaks that stand out are the Carter and the Obama years.

Looking at the more recent times, we can see that the unemployment rate has leveled off, isn’t getting any worse, as Betty McCollum’s tricky chart shows.  But, we still are at historically high levels of unemployment, which her tricky chart belies. 

So what does this all mean for trying to assess the current state of recovery?
The analysis at this site http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011/07/how-many-jobs-are-needed-over-next-year.html shows that we need to have a job growth rate per month, under different scenarios, of between 224000 to 391,000 to lower the unemployment rate to a still objectionable 8.2% in a year.  Unfortunately a far cry from our current levels shown in Betty McCollum’s chart.  It is further complicated by the participation rate, those who are still trying to find work or are employed, vs those who have given up looking for now.  The methods for reporting unemployment numbers were changed during the Carter administration, and probably tweaked a little in every administration since.  So the “real” unemployment is much higher when we include these other “categories” of people who want to be employed, but are discouraged.

ParticipationRate Drops to a Fresh 25 Year Low

1/7/2011 Assuming a reversion to the mean in the long-term average participation rate back to 66%, means that the civilian labor force, which in December came at 153,690, a drop of 260,000 from November, is in reality 157.6 million, a delta of 3.91 million currently unaccounted for.

Why The Decline In The Headline Unemployment Rate Is Actually Terrible News

Business Insider Jan 7, 2011,The participation rate has fallen sharply from 66% at the start of the recession to 64.3% in December [2010]. That is almost 4 million workers who are no longer in the labor force and not counted as unemployed in U-3, although most are included as "discouraged workers" or "Marginally Attached to Labor Force" in U-6.
A decline in the unemployment rate mostly due to a decline in the participation rate is not good employment news.

So how does unemployment in this recession compare to others in the modern era (last 64 years)?  The following chart tracks unemployment from the last date of the maximum employment, typically cited as the “start” of the recession. 
http://cr4re.com/charts/charts.html#category=Employment&chart=EmployPopDec2010.jpg

There are many factors that affect the depth of the unemployment and the length of time to restore employment levels. The one major category that is within our national control are the governmental policies put in place.  Are they beneficial to the economy or are they a drag ending up prolonging the period before “full” recovery can occur.

Perhaps Betty McCollum, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama might want to consider this rendition (see footnote) of the data before answering that question.
http://www.politicalmathblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/CounterGraphMedium1.jpg

Footnote:
I found the Political Math Blog in the final stage of writing this article.  He emphasizes the techniques to create a misleading chart and how he created the somewhat equally misleading chart above as part of his critique of the McCollum/Pelosi/Obama chart.  I included it as a “tongue in cheek” addition to emphasize the point that misleading the American people, from either ideological point, does not help to resolve the very real problems that we face. And is a disservice to us all.  Both charts are accurate values, just misleading in conclusions.
http://www.politicalmathblog.com/?p=383

Both charts use jobs data taken from the same place, displayed the same way, stripped of context and used to push an ideological point using an implicit "correlation mean causation" line of argumentation.

He is well worth the read.

Bi-Partisan Rejection of the Jobs Bill

The President has been flying around the country trying to lift support for his latest stimulus (although I understand that word has been banned from the lexicon political speech by Nancy Pelosi) bill titled “The American Jobs Act”.  He has been saying “pass this bill, pass it right now” before he had even submitted it.  Using manipulative lines like: "If you love me, you've got to help me pass this bill!" 

LA Times Blog: Obama's urgent jobs plan:

So, as of right now, "right now" uttered on Sept. 8 really means sometime at least one month later.
Good thing the president's own Democratic party controls the Senate. Because, otherwise, there might be some kind of silly, unnecessary delays in deliberating Obama's urgent jobs bill that he says will surely help the nation's unemployed millions if only those Republicans don't connive to slow things down.

Pass this bill (later)! Reid blocks Obama jobs bill vote

“Twelve times the president has asked us over the last few weeks to vote on what he calls his jobs bill now,” McConnell said. “I don’t think the president is saying here he wants an extensive debate on it. I think he’s saying he wants a vote on it. And I want to disabuse him of the notion that we’re not willing to vote on it.”

But as shown in the video, it is Harry Reid who denies the vote and delays until later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMW2PQvvMiU


So why has it been so delayed if it would be as productive as Rep Betty McCollum said in her recent townhall

Zandi went on to say that if the plan was fully implemented, "It would increase real GDP growth in 2012 by 2 percentage points, add 1.9 million jobs, and reduce the unemployment rate by a full percentage point, compared with current fiscal policy...". 

The Republicans are stalling on the American Jobs Act because they think it will work, the economy will improve, and President Obama's support will increase.

The delay hasn’t tamped down the demagogic rhetoric any, but the reality of why the delay has been stated by Dick Durbin in a recent interview on WLS Radio, and its not the Republicans. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahp0MeSHDWc

http://www.marklevinshow.com/Article.asp?id=2298590&spid=32364

The oil-producing state senators don’t like reducing  or eliminating the subsidy for oil companies, you know that’s that’s an example.  There are some senators who are up for election who say I’m never gonna vote for a tax increase while I’m up for elections, even on the wealthiest people.  So we’re not gonna have 100% Democratic Senators.  That’s why it needs to be bi-partisan, and I hope we can find some Republicans who will join us to make it happen.

This quote also reveals the fraudulent view that its only considered bi-partisan when Republicans ignore principles, and vote with the Democrat majority plan.

Dick Durbin states, and an article in the New York Times concurs , that there are not enough Democrat Senators in the Senate that will support the bill.

President Obama anticipated Republican resistance to his jobs program, but he is now meeting increasing pushback from his own party. Many Congressional Democrats, smarting from the fallout over the 2009 stimulus bill, say there is little chance they will be able to support the bill as a single entity, citing an array of elements they cannot abide. 

Another interpretation is that these Senators know its not the right bill/plan to help improve the climate for job creation. 

So when they scream invectives and say that the Republicans will not compromise, they really are really saying “its our way or the highway”, its only bi-partisan when its our way.  However here we have a case of real and honest bi-partisan rejection of this badly conceived bill.

The Penalty of Regulations

At a recent Oakdale City Council meeting a wonderfully informative story about the issue of Federal Regulations was related.  The City was facing the mandated requirement to change street signs to conform to federal regulations about-retro reflective signage.

In a report from the Oakdale City Engineer Staff:

Federal Regulations have established national standards for the use of traffic control and guide signs in the Manual of Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD).
...
As part of our annual reconstruction program we, in effect, replace three (3) percent of our signs. In addition, we typically replace another two (2) percent due to fading or knock downs. Therefore, we average $20,000 per year in sign replacement expenditures. The FHWA didn’t provide funding for the sign replacement program; however they allowed for the multiyear phase-in period.
...
This program will require us to replace 25% of our signs each year over the next four (4) years so that we have 100% compliance by January 1, 2015. Which results in an anticipated expenditure of $200,000/year over the next four (4) years.
...
Street Name Signs:
1) Specifications for nine inch Street Name Signs:
a) Sign should be nine inches in height.
b) Signs should be a minimum of 18” in length and a maximum of 60” in length.

This regulatory instance shows several of the issues with Federal Regulations versus local control.  Ultimately cities bear the burden of many regulations. Costs increase, in this case from $20,000/yr to $200,000/yr, budget plans go awry, inescapable increased taxes are created. The impact of this regulation would have more than erased the hard work done by the council and city staff in reducing the budget, to keep the city portion of taxes from increasing next year, as seen in this article from the Oakdale Patch.  This is the outcome that we the people do not want, and the City Council and City Staff have been working hard to prevent.

If timetable and planning are left to the City Council and City Staff to implement, then significant cost savings can be achieved.  This is greatly to the benefit of the people.  Balancing the City Budget can be made much more difficult or impossible by mandates from State and Federal Regulations that remove flexibility needed to adapt and make the best decisions.  The arbitrary deadlines and one size fits all rules increase costs, wasting city resources and ultimately citizen pocket books, and frustrates the best efforts of the City Council and City Staff.

Senate GOP looks to ease federal mandate on reflective road signs

06/20/11 “Tennessee Republican Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander last week introduced legislation that would waive the requirement that all states install more reflective road signs by 2018....”Obviously, everyone wants our roads to be as safe as possible, but the arbitrary deadlines assigned by Washington amount to an unfunded mandate on local governments at a time when they can least afford it," Corker said. "Instead of asking local governments to shell out $50 million, it seems like a much more reasonable approach to replace road signs when they need to be replaced instead of an arbitrary deadline assigned by some Washington bureaucrat."

In January President Obama had called for a government-wide review of regulations already on the books. The purpose was to identify rules that needed to be changed or removed because they were unnecessary, out-of-date, excessively burdensome or overly costly.  Fortunately this was one of the regulations that the Obama administration has recently rescinded

U. S. Department of Transportation Proposes to Eliminate Deadlines for Replacing Traffic Signs

August 30, 2011 U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced that the Obama Administration is eliminating dozens of burdensome regulations on traffic signs which cash-strapped state and local governments expect will save them millions of dollars.

So when the federal government follows through and gets it right, they deserve to get plaudits.  Now, can we consider a few more...please?

A New Malaise Speech?

At about the same time in his Presidency as Barack Obama is now, Jimmy Carter gave his Malaise Speech.  Interestingly enough it was a young Bill Clinton, though uncredited, who had told then President Carter: “Mr. President, you are not leading this Nation— you're just managing the Government”. Though he never used the word malaise, he spoke of the crisis in confidence and essentially told the American people they were at fault.  Entire text here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCOd-qWZB_g&feature=player_detailpage#t=236s


Carter's Crisis Speech

On the evening of July 15, 1979, millions of Americans tuned in to hear Jimmy Carter give the most important speech of his presidency. After sharing some of the criticism he had heard at Camp David -- including an unattributed quote from the young governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton -- Carter put his own spin on Caddell's argument. "The solution of our energy crisis can also help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country," the president said, asking Americans to join him in adapting to a new age of limits.
But he also admonished them, "In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does but by what one owns." Hendrik Hertzberg, who worked on the speech, admits that it "was more like a sermon than a political speech. It had the themes of confession, redemption, and sacrifice. He was bringing the American people into this spiritual process that he had been through, and presenting them with an opportunity for redemption as well as redeeming himself." Though he never used the word -- Caddell had in his memo -- it became known as Carter's "malaise" speech.

And now President Obama may have given his own version of the malaise speech in a recent interview with Jim Payne at WESH-TV in Orlando.  His diminutive view of the United States continues to be the source for his “strive for mediocrity” approach to the US economy and our future place in the World. (see here   here  and here  )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4aFzzvmIUA

“The way I think about it is, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft and we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades,” he said. “We need to get back on track.”

You can watch the entire interview and hear how President Obama dances around the shutdown at NASA, trying to say "we are in a period of transition". We are going to spend a decade not doing any space flights, as we plan for "improvements". And, we aren’t going to lose our edge.

Krauthammer on Obama's America's "getting soft" comment:

"[Obama is] compounding condescension, incompetence and narcissism all in one sentence".

Newt Gingrich recalls the Carter malaise speech and compares to Obama’s “Americans soft” moment. 

"We don't have a problem with the American people being too soft, we have a problem with Barack Obama just being plain wrong!".

PBS describes the results for Carter as

The op-ed pieces started spinning out, 'Why don't you fix something? There's nothing wrong with the American people. We're a great people. Maybe the problem's in the White House, maybe we need new leadership to guide us.'" Historian Roger Wilkins concurs: "When your leadership is demonstrably weaker than it should be, you don't then point at the people and say, 'It's your problem.' If you want the people to move, you move them the way Roosevelt moved them, or you exhort them the way Kennedy or Johnson exhorted them. You don't say, 'It's your fault.'"

I doubt that the media that is so strongly supportive of President Obama will act as the independent fourth estate and follow through as they did when Jimmy Carter was President.  They are too invested in his Presidency and his agenda. So this will probably never be seen on the front page of the New York Times, or the Strib.

The parallels between the presentations are remarkable and stark.  The theme that its America's fault rides in both.  Can we depend on the leadership and move forward with a misguided President who has such a low opinion of the American people? 

Obama’s Jobs Bill - Payroll Tax Plan Double Down

Last year Congress moved to reduce the 6.2% FICA taxes for employees to 4%.  It was limited for one year, and would expire in December, but is now proposed to be extended through 2012.  Obama is also proposing to increase the cut to 3.1%, and additionally do the same for the employers.  This is the largest cost component of his plan.  So is it effective?

Obama's Payroll Tax Plan

Sept 8, 2011For employers, the proposal would halve the employer’s share of the payroll tax temporarily – to 3.1% from the current 6.2% – on the first $5 million of a firm’s payroll in 2012. About 98% of firms have payrolls of $5 million or less, the White House said in materials distributed before the speech.
In addition, its plan would completely eliminate payroll taxes for firms that increased their payrolls by adding new workers or increasing wages of current workers. That new break would be limited to the first $50 million of a firm’s payroll increases, measured against the prior year.

The basic problem with the belief that this will have an impact on jobs is that it is temporary.  No company can depend on factoring this into any long term hiring.  And we certainly hope jobs would last more than a few months.  Private sector jobs require long term sustained increases in business revenue to be self-sustaining, reducing or eliminating taxes on a job does very little to accomplish that.  The short term nature of the tax reduction does not help overcome the uncertainty, or as the markets drop this week might make you think certainty, of not having that long term increased revenue.  We need long term sustainable private sector jobs, not temporary.

It appears the belief is that this plan worked so well that we are going to double down on it. 

Plan’s Effect on Jobs Under Debate

Sept. 13, 2011 “There has been zero evidence that it moved the needle last year, and nothing suggests doing it again, albeit in a larger way, would increase hiring,” said a GOP aide.
At the same time, Republicans may find it hard to vote against a big tax cut, and in the current political climate, lawmakers are wary of doing nothing to address the lack of jobs. That is why some top Republicans are signaling support for renewing the payroll tax cut.

Will Obama’s Plan Create Jobs?

Sep 8, 2011 But with Obama’s re-election prospects hinging on the state of the economy, just how effective could a payroll tax break be in stimulating job growth?
“It won’t be,” said Curtis Dubay, senior tax policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. “Let’s not forget it’s in place right now and the unemployment rate is 9.1 percent.”
Dubay said a better option would be, for example, permanently reducing the corporate tax rate, which is currently the highest in the world.
“Temporary tax measures never spur economic activity because families and businesses don’t make economic decisions based on short term tax breaks,” Dubay said. “When trying to achieve a specific purpose, it has to be done correctly and the payroll holiday is the wrong way.”

The main goal of this is the premise that “putting more money in peoples pockets” for them to spend will spur increased demand for products. More often the use of a single short term infusion of cash is to pay credit card debt or just pocket the savings.  Neither is a bad option, its just not the spur they are looking for. Since we have already pulled the income tax trigger, to the point that close to half the people in the US pay no federal income tax, the FICA tax is about the only game left in town.  The effect this will have on the already stressed social security system is hard to ignore, even with the protestations from Obama that this will be paid for.

Megan McArdle is a senior editor for The Atlantic

And there's rather a big poison pill for Congress in here: Obama has proposed no pay-for.  Or rather, he proposed that Congress figure out how to pay for it:

Basically Obama has said:

Obama: "Here's the deal: I take credit for the new spending now; you take credit for making politically unpopular cuts later."

 Select committees are turning into the Laffer Curve of the left: every time you want more money to pay for something, assign a committee to make unspecified cuts years in the future.

Republican complaints that the spending will happen and the pay-fors won't aren't unreasonable, and I suspect they'll get some traction with independents.

The unemployment numbers remain at 9.1% (much higher if you consider those who have given up looking), indicating the first shot using the payroll tax wasn’t and thus the double down will probably not be the silver bullet.  And since the method for financing this still seems hinged on debt, it does not help on that front either.  But then there is the ever popular class warfare approach of "tax the wealthy".  Yeah, they'll buy that one!

Global Warming Redux

That the theory of anthropogenic global warming is anything but “settled science” can readily be seen in the various articles and comments about the latest data from a CERN test supporting the theory presented by Dr. Henrik Svensmark, a physicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen who studies the effects of cosmic rays on cloud formation.  Svensmark presented his theory in a very readable book “The Chilling Stars”.  He studies a phenomena that is poorly understood, but may be critical to the understanding of temperature variation.

Nature

It sounds like a conspiracy theory: 'cosmic rays' from deep space might be creating clouds in Earth's atmosphere and changing the climate. Yet an experiment at CERN, Europe's high-energy physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, is finding tentative evidence for just that.

CFACT

For years, physicist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish National Space Institute (who has presented at conferences organized by CFACT and EIKE) has been asking inconvenient questions about the relationship between the sun, clouds and climate.  He demonstrated in the lab that cosmic rays from the sun affect cloud formation.  Cosmic rays are a factor not meaningfully considered in the computer climate models which global warming proponents have declared to be so robust that they are beyond discussion.
To the vexation of true climate believers, Svensmark’s work has been confirmed at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research.  CERN is home to the Hadron super conducting super collider near Geneva.  CERN simulated the effect of cosmic rays in the earth’s atmosphere and found that it does indeed influence cloud formation.
This is very inconvenient science for the global warming campaigners, researchers and myriad carbon carpetbaggers, all of whose incomes have come to depend on government willingness to accept the authority of climate models as gospel.  The more people know about computer climate models, the less they are willing to curtail the freedom and prosperity of the developed world.

Physics World

Kirkby shares Pierce's caution. He argues that CLOUD's results "say nothing about cosmic-ray effects on clouds" because the aerosols produced in the experiment are far too small to seed clouds. But he adds that the collaboration will have some "interesting new results" to present later this year regarding the role of organic molecules in aerosol formation. "What is needed now to settle this question are precise, quantitative measurements," he adds.

Science Magazine

It has been proposed that Earth's climate could be affected by changes in cloudiness caused by variations in the intensity of galactic cosmic rays in the atmosphere. This proposal stems from an observed correlation between cosmic ray intensity and Earth's average cloud cover over the course of one solar cycle. Some scientists question the reliability of the observations, whereas others, who accept them as reliable, suggest that the correlation may be caused by other physical phenomena with decadal periods or by a response to volcanic activity or El Niño

And then there’s that inevitable response by Al Gore, who’s quoting Media Matters as a scientific source.

In another recent development that shows the frequent exaggerations that have made in support of the AGW claims, only now beginning to get serious criticism from traditional media, Harper Collin’s published new ice sheet maps of Greenland.

"These new maps are ridiculously off base, way exaggerated relative to the reality of rapid change in Greenland," said Jeffrey S. Kargel, senior research scientist at the University of Arizona.
The Times Atlas suggested the Greenland ice sheet has lost 300,000 square kilometers in the past 12 years, at a rate of 1.5 percent per year.
However, measurements suggest this rate is at least 10 times faster than in reality, added J. Graham Cogley, Professor of Geography at Trent University, Ontario, Canada.
"It could easily be 20 times too fast and might well be 50 times too fast," he added.
Last year, a U.N. committee of climate scientists came under fire for bungling a forecast of when Himalayan glaciers would thaw.
The panel's 2007 report, the main guide for governments in fighting climate change, included an incorrect projection that all Himalayan glaciers could vanish by 2035, hundreds of years earlier than scientists' projections.

And finally, scientists are becoming more vocal in rebelling against the idea that the science is  “settled”, and especially with the APS (American Physical Society), and the distortion to the scientific process that this monolithic conformity creates.  This takes enormous courage and motivation, because of the very real threat of ostracism that they face as a result.

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Resigns Over Global Warming
here and here

September 14, 2011 Giaever explained in his email to APS: "In the APS it is ok to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible? The claim (how can you measure the average temperature of the whole earth for a whole year?) is that the temperature has changed from ~288.0 to ~288.8 degree Kelvin in about 150 years, which (if true) means to me is that the temperature has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this 'warming' period."

Top Physics Professor Resigns From Post, Denouncing Global Warming "Fraud"
here and here

October 13, 2010 In perhaps the biggest critique delivered against the current state of global warming research "consensus", since "climategate" at the University of East Anglia, a renowned physics professor has written a lengthy letter resigning from the American Physical Society and condemning the state of warming research.
…
California meteorologist turned blogger Anthony Watts describes it as "a letter on the scale of Martin Luther, nailing his 95 theses to the Wittenburg church door".  Whether you agree or disagree with the current state of global warming research, it's hard to argue with that assertion.

Here we have a prominent researcher in one of the primary fields of global warming research -- physics -- putting his reputation on the line to challenge what he feels is clear and present wrongdoing.

Earlier groups had voiced their strong dissent, one example from August 05, 2009

More than 60 prominent German scientists have publicly declared their dissent from man-made global warming fears in an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The more than 60 signers of the letter include several United Nations IPCC scientists.

The scientists declared that global warming has become a “pseudo religion” and they noted that rising CO2 has “had no measurable effect” on temperatures. The German scientists, also wrote that the “UN IPCC has lost its scientific credibility.”

How prescient, since the many public evidences were yet to be revealed, Climategate and the fascinating "Harry Readme" file in November, and the AfricaGate and Glaciergate the following January (2010).

So where does the Al Gore promoted myth of near total consensus came from?


You Call This ‘Consensus’ on Climate Change?

What of the claim that “97% of climate scientists believe in AGW”? The origin of this spurious claim is a 2009 online survey of scientists by two University of Illinois professors who claimed to have found that 75 out of 77 climate scientists (yes, only 77 climate scientists!)
…
Regarding the sample size … according to Lawrence Solomon, the two researchers who produced the survey deliberately left out solar scientists, space scientists, cosmologists, physicists, meteorologists, and astronomers … all scientists likely to be aware of natural causes of climate change. Only scientists employed by governments or universities were chosen to be surveyed, introducing another source of bias. Of the 10,000 or so scientists left, about 3,000 replied to the 2-minute online survey. No surprise, 82% of that unrepresentative sample answered yes to the ambiguous question. The authors then looked at a subset of just 77 scientists who participated in the survey and were successful in getting more than half their papers accepted by peer-reviewed climate science journals and found that 75 of those answered “yes.” 75/77 = 97%.
This may be how sausage is made, but it is not how accurate surveys are conducted. The “97% of climate scientists” claim is garbage. Anyone who cites it ought to be ashamed.

There is strong evidence that the earth has been warming since the "Little Ice Age".  And cooling before that (hence the "Little Ice Age"), and warming, in fact many cycles.  The real question is how much of the warming in the last 150 years might be due to natural effects and what part human interaction?  Is man’s impact significant, or very small?  The study of climate change is a very complex one, an inescapable understatement.  That the present models are woefully inadequate to be able to include many very basic influences like clouds and precipitation systems, is becoming more known and discussed is a good thing.  Perhaps we can take the discussion out of the realm of a political tool and restore credibility to the system.

Betty McCollum Comments on Obama's Jobs Speech

Last Thursday, President Obama offered up his latest stimulus package. It consisted of three essential points, all of which represent attempts already taken. More shovel ready jobs (devoted mostly to unions, shovel ready which even Obama joked about earlier), extending the payroll tax reduction (that has been in place since last year) for another year, and repeating a tax credit proposal for employing an applicant who has been unemployed for more than six months (which many believe has very little promise of impacting long term hiring).

During the speech he did not disclose any costs, which tops $447 billion, but did make 17 demands to "pass this bill".  A bill that wasn't even available until Monday, after his Rose Garden update, and as of Tuesday has still not been submitted by any Democratic Congressman. In his Thursday speech he basically passed the buck to determine how pay for it to the Congress.

"The agreement we passed in July will cut government spending by about $1 trillion over the next ten years. It also charges this Congress to come up with an additional $1.5 trillion in savings by Christmas. Tonight, I’m asking you to increase that amount so that it covers the full cost of the American Jobs Act."

He added in his Rose Garden speech:

"And the American Jobs Act is not going to add to the debt — it’s fully paid for. I want to repeat that. It is fully paid for. (Laughter.) It’s not going to add a dime to the deficit."

Since then he has reversed again and returns to advocating the tax the rich solution that has been shown to be woefully inadequate.  The really glaring omission in his speech was no mention at all of the biggest opportunity for increasing jobs -- the energy industry. Probably the biggest reason for that is that the day he was giving his speech, the FBI was raiding Obama's green industry darling Solyndra.

Rep Betty McCollum gave her response to President Obama's jobs speech in an MPR article:

WASHINGTON - Before a special joint session of a bitterly divided Congress, President Obama laid out his agenda for creating jobs and reducing unemployment through a $450 billion package of targeted tax cuts and infrastructure investments.

And for an example of why there is such bitter divide Rep Betty McCollum offered this advice:

Rep. Betty McCollum - "For the past eight months, the world has witnessed an out-of-control Tea Party majority in Congress, harming our economy and stalling job growth with their posturing and political games," said McCollum, a liberal DFL member from St. Paul, in a written statement. "The American people want jobs, not dangerous and harmful Tea Party schemes to protect polluters, bust unions, eliminate Medicare, and outsource more jobs."

That Betty McCollum and Barack Obama (is that redundant?) are outstanding Union supporters is no surprise to anyone. That she should use such a demogogic statement to malign those who are trying honestly to correct the financial morass we are in, is simply poor judgement. The evidence for "out-of-control" behavior is apparently that the Tea Party opposes the economic ideology of Keynes and the profligate spending that Washington is known for, and in particular the liberal DFL side of the ideological world. Meanwhile the evidence for "out-of'control" behavior by their favored Unions and those who oppose the ideology of the Tea Party is rampant.

Longshoremen storm port, take six security guards hostage for several hours

One sergeant was threatened with baseball bats and retreated, Duscha said. “One officer with hundreds of Longshoremen? He used the better part of discretion.”

Labor Army Goes To War

"Hey, remember when Jimmy Hoffa Jr pledged that his union “army” would take out those “sons of bitches” in the Tea Party? Well, you can’t just jump into battle without tuning up a little first. The labor movement apparently decided to fight its first skirmish in Longview, Washington, where the ILWU seized grain and hostages while wreaking havoc at a rail yard"

Union Protests Result In Arrests, Train Damage And Dumped Grain

September 8, 2011 "Approximately 500 Longshoremen protesters went to the EGT property, entered that property, damaged windows in the guard shack, pushed a private security vehicle into a ditch," Duscha said.
Duscha says boxcars were damaged and had grain dumped from them.
..
Union leaders and supporters say the actions reflect members' frustration.

Verizon damage disrupts emergency calls; workers on strike

Clad in red shirts, the workers held up signs that read, "CWA on Strike Against Verizon’s Corporate Greed," and cheered as honking cars passed by.
Matt Gates is one of the striking Verizon employees.
"Being out here - they didn't leave us a choice. They didn't want to bargain. We want to make sure everyone’s aware that corporate greed has to stop."

When the country is looking to our leaders to create an environment where jobs can grow, we expect plans that really have a chance of improving the economy, not simply retreads and name calling. Emphasis needs to be placed on finding out what businesses need! Improving the economy so companies will have the demand to create jobs to bring us back to work. President Obama made one statement Thursday that really was on target, and does a great job of summing up. If he and Betty McCollum only listen to it, instead of  seeking scores for political rhetoric.

Those of us here tonight can’t solve all of our nation’s woes. Ultimately, our recovery will be driven not by Washington, but by our businesses and our workers. But we can help. We can make a difference. There are steps we can take right now to improve people’s lives.

Its just critical to get the right kind of help.  So far this proposal does not look like they have.