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Bush Backs Off Forecast of 2.6M New Jobs
By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush distanced himself Wednesday from White
House predictions that the economy will add 2.6 million jobs this year, the
second embarrassing economic retreat in a week and new fuel for Democratic
criticism.
"Now they're already walking backwards on their own predictions," Democratic
presidential front-runner John Kerry said in Ohio, where unemployment has
risen
from 3.9 percent to 6 percent since Bush took office.
The jobs controversy came on the heels of White House economist N. Gregory
Mankiw's assertion that "outsourcing" American jobs overseas was good for
the U.S. economy in the long run. Bush, House Speaker Dennis Hastert and
other Republicans quickly disavowed Mankiw's remarks, and the economist had
to apologize for a "lack of clarity."
Jobs are a sensitive political issue for Bush as he fights to keep his own
job in a second term. The economy has lost 2.2 million payroll jobs since
Bush took office, the worst job-creation record of any president since
Herbert Hoover.
The forecast of 2.6 million new jobs was contained in the annual Economic
Report of the President, a 412-page volume of charts, graphs and text that
predicted a bright economic future. The forecast came under special scrutiny
after Treasury Secretary John Snow and Commerce Secretary Don Evans refused
to repeat the optimistic prediction as they toured Washington and Oregon to
promote the president's economic programs.
Bush himself avoided embracing the 2.6 million number when asked about it
Wednesday. "I think the economy is growing," Bush said. "And I think it's
going to get stronger." He said he was pleased that 366,000 jobs have been
added since August.
"We are interested in reality," presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Democrats jumped on the White House retreat.
Six Democratic senators sent Bush a letter lambasting the administration for
the Mankiw and jobs flaps. "When the White House's official economic report
makes the wrongheaded suggestion that moving jobs overseas is beneficial to
the economy and contains job projections that are not endorsed by your own
Cabinet members, serious questions are raised that the administration's
economic policies are in disarray," the letter said. It was signed by Sens.
Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, Hillary
Clinton and Charles Schumer of New York, Jon Corzine of New Jersey and
Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, said, "President Bush is
rapidly becoming the permanently surprised president. He is surprised that
every economic prediction that he and his administration make does not pan
out."
Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill, a senior adviser in the Clinton White House, said,
"This president faces a credibility gap with his own economic team that's as
wide as the employment gap for millions of American workers."
McClellan said the economic forecast was simply the work of "number
crunchers." He said Bush - who bills himself as the first president with a
Master of Business Administration degree - was not a statistician or
predictor.
"People can debate the numbers all they want," McClellan said. "The
president is interested in the actual number of jobs being created, and the
president is interested in making sure that everybody who is looking for a
job can find one."
Trying to turn the tables on Kerry, McClellan said, "Some people want to
turn back and take actions that would raise taxes on people at a time when
our economy is really starting to grow strong." Kerry has proposed cutting
the deficit by half, at least, in a first term, in part through repeal of
Bush tax cuts for wealthier Americans.
The administration's economic forecast, on which it based its budget
projections, predicted that payroll jobs would average 132.7 million per
month this year, an increase of 2.6 million from the 2003 monthly average.
However, to achieve that average, the economy would have to create more than
2.6 million jobs in coming months because the level of jobs at the beginning
of the year was lower than the administration had built into its forecast.
For January, there were 130.2 million Americans working, according to the
Labor Department's payroll survey. To achieve its forecast of 132.7 million
jobs on average each month this year would require the creation of 460,000
jobs per month over the next 11 months, according to an analysis by two
liberal think tanks, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the
Economic Policy Institute.
--
"We should not march into Baghdad. To occupy Iraq would
instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab
world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-
day Arab hero. Assigning young soldiers to a fruitless
hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning
them to fight in what would be an unwinable urban guerilla
war, it could only plunge that part of the world into ever
greater instability."
-George H. W. Bush in his 1998
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