Bush = More Jobs

John Kerry says unemployment is epidemic, but his policies would create more jobs. In the third debate, John Kerry called President Bush "the only president in 72 years to lose jobs -- 1.6 million jobs lost." In the second debate, Kerry blamed "outsourcing," fostered by Bush's tax policy:

There is a tax loophole right now. If you're a company in St. Louis working, trying to make jobs here, there is actually an incentive for you to go away. You get more money, you keep more of your taxes by going abroad.

I'm going to shut that loophole, and I'm going to give the tax benefit to the companies that stay here in America to help make them more competitive.

Are Senator Kerry's claims accurate? Nope.

1. Employment increased under Bush. Kerry's job loss figures use fuzzy math and are profoundly misleading. The numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, a government agency); in particular, the "payroll" survey, which reflect salaried (i.e., corporate) jobs. But the BLS also conducts a "household" survey, which counts the self-employed (including those working on farms) as well. And that's a difference that makes a difference, according to Larry Kudlow, Economics Editor of National Review Online:

   Since George W. Bush was elected president, 585,000 payroll jobs have been lost. However, 1.69 million more people are working today according to the Labor Department’s other jobs survey — the household survey. Since the end of the recession in late 2001, 908,000 new payroll jobs have been created. But 3.4 million more people have gone to work since then, according to the household survey.

   So more Americans are working today then were when Bush arrived. The BLS numbers, after controlling for population growth, are (see page 13):

   1/2001 household employment--130,229,000
   9/2004 household employment--132,463,000
   
   Increase under Bush (new jobs)--2,234,000

   So employment's up, not down. By ignoring the self-employed, Kerry's simply lying with statistics. Jerry Bowyer, economic advisor to Blue Vase Capital Management, offered President Bush this pre-scripted rebuttal:

   The claim that I am the first president in 72 years to have a net jobs loss is undeniably false. It’s false because during my time as president, we have not lost jobs. We’ve created 1.7 million jobs. For some strange reason, Sen. Kerry has decided not to count self-employed people in his calculations. Realtors, appraisers, many financial planners, accountants, and contractors are owners of their own businesses, but in John Kerry’s world, they just don’t count. As with most untruths, there is a small kernel of truth that makes them seem plausible. Fewer people are on corporate payrolls in America today than when I took office. However, people have not moved from traditional jobs into the despair of unemployment, they’ve moved from traditional jobs into their dream of entrepreneurship. This is not just a statistical thing, it’s a philosophical thing. For Sen. Kerry, these people don’t have real jobs. To them and to me, they do.

   In the second debate, Bush defended his record by focusing on events outside his control:

   You might remember the stock market started to decline dramatically six months before I came to office, and then the bubble of the 1990s popped. And that cost us revenue. . .
   
   [And] we're at war. And I'm going to spend what it takes to win the war, more than just $120 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan.

   Bush's reply was accurate, but the President "misunderestimated" his own accomplishments. With an unemployment rate under historical averages, Bush's record on jobs is a success story.



2. Outsourcing is irrelevant and unstoppable. To his credit, Kerry himself admitted no President could halt the trend:

   Outsourcing is going to happen. I've acknowledged that in union halls across the country. I've had shop stewards stand up and say, 'Will you promise me you're going to stop all this outsourcing?' And I've looked them in the eye and I've said, 'No, I can't do that.'

   Still, Kerry blames outsourcing for those (mythical) job losses. He's wrong. Outsourcing benefits consumers through cost savings. Besides (with some exceptions) the U.S. permits both outsourcing and insourcing. And insourcing usually offsets outsourcing, as economist Matthew Slaughter of Dartmouth College concluded:

   offshoring has created two U.S. jobs for every job created abroad. As offshoring lowers costs and expands access to overseas markets, greater sales create demand for more U.S. goods (computers, telecom equipment, software) and U.S. services (scientists, engineers, experts in law, finance, and marketing).

   Factcheck.org concurs. My own work--centering on foreign telecom law--is an example of "insourcing."
   
   John Kerry’s campaign website contains 176 separate statements on the evils of outsourcing. But most economists agree with Lawrence J. McQuillan, at the California-based Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, that "Outsourcing is responsible for a trivial amount of job loss at most, and is generally a positive for the U.S. economy." Another accomplishment of the Administration.
   
   (Note: Kerry himself profited from offshoring. In particular, in 1983, he invested between $25,000 and $30,000 in offshore companies registered in the Cayman Islands. (via The Corner) "Not that there's anything wrong with that.")

Conclusion. Kerry's claims about employment are demonstrably false. So why isn't the media confronting him? The same reason CBS peddled phony Texas Guard memos and fake DoJ schemes to restart the draft: "It's like they want Kerry to win or something," as Instapundit says.

Forget the media. Focus on the facts. The Senator's parade of horribles bears no relation to the strong U.S. economy. It's another of Kerry's frequent exaggerations. Which makes Kerry even more frightening than his scare tactics.