…Oops?

Andrew Malcolm is quite blunt:

As the Labor Department today reported more disappointing hiring news for January, including an unexpected jump in the unemployment rate, President Obama joined thousands of other American employers and let his own White House jobs council go.

The President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness expired in obscurity Thursday in an unmarked bureaucratic grave. Created two years ago to display the Chicagoan’s alleged concern with high unemployment, whatever its PR showcase value had long since ended.

…but then, bluntness seems to be the only viable strategy anymore. The economy contracted last quarter; unemployment rose a tick to 7.9%; and consumer confidence is now paying rent for the toilet that it’s been in for pretty much Obama’s entire term*. We are looking at another recession at this rate, and we did not actually really recover from the last recession. The only reason that the country isn’t in worse shape is because Republican-controlled states are taking up the economic slack from the Democratic-controlled ones. Which is fine, to a limited extent; but it’s time we stopped pretending that there are two viable ideological responses to our financial woes. There’s just the conservative response, and all the wrong ones.

Hey. If the liberal model worked, people would be moving into California, Illinois, and/or New York. Not out of those states.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Notice, by the way, the pro-administration spinning that took place about the economic contraction and consumer confidence. This is only going to get worse: it’s hard out there for an Obama defender.