I've been watching politics for a long time. I've seen this scam, before.
Supporters
bring you Rob Sherman Advocacy.
Click here to join them.
Politicians plan on how to get re-elected from before their first day in office. One dirty trick that conservatives like to use on working people is to create the illusion that things are getting better, economically, during the final year of an administration, so you should "stay the course" and vote to re-elect the guy, even though he has a terrible record on things such as civil rights and the environment.
What's the easiest, cheapest trick to create the illusion that things are getting better during the fourth year of an administration? Make things worse during the early years. Then, by relieving the downward pressure during the final years, things begin to bounce back, creating upward movement in the economy. The net change over the course of the administration is backwards for working people, but since most people have short memories, all they see is that in the past year (the final year of an administration), things are getting better so the leader should be re-elected to "finish the job" of recovery.
One of the reasons that Clinton is one of the greatest Presidents of all time is that he never pulled that scam. Things got better for all eight years. Each year was better than before.
Now, we have an administration that is doing everything they can to talk the economy into a recession. Get people to stop buying goods and services now, or to cut way back on such purchases, to create a pent-up need for goods and services just when it's time for Bush and Cheney to run for re-election. The downward pressure will be lifted. The economy will appear to be recovering. In reality, the economy won't be improving due to good economic policy. Rather, the economy will simply be recovering from a Republican stranglehold that was put on in the early years of the administration to make things look better during the final years of the administration. The pent-up need for the final year of Bush-Cheney will have been intentionally manufactured by deliberately depressing economic activity now.
Part of the purpose for this process is to help the rich buddies of the administration by holding down wages. If people aren't buying goods and services, fewer employees are needed to fill the remaining need. Workers get fired in wholesale lots, as we've already seen happening in the Republican Recession of 2001. Remaining workers become scared that they could lose their jobs, too, so they reduce their demands for raises, thinking that they're lucky just to have a job, but it's all part of a Republican plan to intimidate workers so that labor costs are minimized.
To Republicans, the best way to hold down labor costs is to create an artificial shortage of jobs. The way to create a shortage of jobs is to start a recession.
Every single Republican administration for at least the past seventy years has pulled that scam. According to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics employment statistics (see the column that is second from the far right in employment statistics), unemployment under each Republican administration has increased, substantially, before declining in the final year of the administration.
When Eisenhower/Nixon took office in 1953, unemployment was at 2.9%. Unemployment more than doubled, to 6.8%, in 1958, before declining to 5.5%, just in time for Nixon to claim an improvement in the economy. The net change over eight years was that unemployment was almost double, but in the last year, it came down by 1.3%, just in time for Nixon to claim that his administration was making things better, not worse, even though things had gotten much worse over eight years.
When Nixon/Agnew/Ford took office in 1969, unemployment was at 3.5%. Once again, unemployment under the Republicans more than doubled, to 8.5%, before declining slightly to 7.7% in 1976. Once again, the Republican incumbent, this time Ford, could claim that his administration was making things better, not worse, even though things had gotten much worse over eight years.
When Reagan/Bush took office in 1981, unemployment was at 7.1%. As usual, under the Republicans, unemployment skyrocketed, this time by more than a third to 9.7% in 1983, before declining to 5.5% in 1988, just in time for Bush to claim that unemployment had been cut almost in half. In reality, unemployment had only been cut by a little more than 1% over the eight years, but by running up unemployment in the early years, an illusion was created that things had gotten much better. Much better only from the Republican-created catastrophe of 1983.
When Bush took office in 1989, unemployment was at 5.3%. That figure skyrocketed by almost half to 7.5% in 1992. Then, just in time for the election, unemployment began to decline towards 7%. This time, the American public wasn't fooled by a last-minute reduction in unemployment where the net change had been a one-third increase in unemployment. Remember the campaign phrase that beat Bush: "It's the economy, stupid."
Unemployment during the Clinton administration went down. It didn't just have a net decline over eight years, with some annual increases and some annual decreases yielding a final unemployment figure that was less than when he started. Unemployment, in fact, went down each and every year of the Clinton administration. From 7.5 in Bush's final year in 1992, Clinton's figures were 6.9% in 1993, 6.1% in 1994, 5.6% in 1995, 5.4% in 1996, 4.9% in 1997, 4.5% in 1998, 4.2% in 1999 and 4.0% in 2000. With that kind of success in behalf of the American people, Bill Clinton should be regarded as one of the greatest American Presidents of all time.
We've been stuck with Bush for a month and a day, now, and already, unemployment is skyrocketing. It's going to be a long four years. I hope the American people don't get fooled by a temporary, contrived improvement in 2004. You watch and see. There will be a recession this year, and probably next year, too. Then, there will be a miraculous economic turnaround, just in time for Bush and Cheney to claim that they should be re-elected, despite their miserable civil rights, environmental and tax policies, because their economic policies are suddenly working so well.
Better that they shouldn't wreck the economy in the first place. Then, there won't be anything that needs to be fixed.
Too late now, though. When the economy starts to turn around, three years from now, remember where you heard it predicted first.
Rob Sherman P. O. Box
7410
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089-7410
A post office box is used
because
the street address uses a curb mail box,
which is not secure.
Telephone: (847) 870-0700
Fax: (847) 870-1156
E-mail: rob followed by the at symbol followed by robsherman dot com