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September 02, 2004
White House Locks Up the New Jobless Numbers
Posted by | 04:31 PM

President Bush will not see the September 3 jobless report from the Department of Labor before delivering his convention speech September 2, White House Chief of Staff Andy Card told reporters in New York. It is customary for the department to send the figures to the White House the evening before they become public, but Card said Bush and his speechwriters would not know the contents until midnight, or some time after the convention gavels to a close, in order to insulate the president from potential critiques that he used insider government information for political purposes.

"The speech is not going to be changed," Card said. "I know the sensitivities and I also know what the law says, and we will do nothing to allow anyone to know the information that could influence anything the president might say that might cause a wink or a nod or anything else. I already put the edict down, and it was not an easy thing to do."

Comments

'...we will do nothing to allow anyone to know the information that could influence anything the president might say that might cause a wink or a nod or anything else. I already put the edict down, and it was not an easy thing to do."

"It was not an easy thing to do."???? What does that mean? Who was angling to get it to him before?

Posted by: Debra at September 3, 2004 03:55 AM

It really means that the numbers are bad enough they hope the hurricane will keep them out of the spotlight. 144K jobs is not terrible but far short of the 2+million predicted by Bush administration last year. Why is the economy consistently producing so many fewer jobs than they predict. Are flawed predictions leading flawed fiscal policy? Why has Mr Bush not taken the usual steps to boost employment? 1. Money to the States. 2. Worker training education. 3. Money to stimulate demand. ??? Tax cuts for the wealthy is not a jobs creation program. Deficit spending in a global economy in the face of huge trade deficits is not a national savings program. Bush fired his first economic team of O'Neill, Lindsey, Hubbard and Daniels. Should he fire the backups? Is the Church of the Supply Side filled with false prophets?

Posted by: bakho at September 3, 2004 11:02 AM

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