RUSH: Let’s listen to a little montage here of the media and some elected officials, the great news that only 36,000 people lost their jobs. And, by the way, I don’t even believe the number, but we’ll go with it since that’s what’s been reported.
TODD: The nation’s unemployment rate is holding steady at 9.7%. Employers cut 36,000 jobs, fewer than expected.
BRZEZINSKI: The unemployment rate is unchanged in February at 9.7%. Employers cut 36,000 jobs, which was smaller than expected.
WHITFIELD: The jobless rate held steady by 9.7%. That’s good news.
SHUSTER: The unemployment rate held steady at 9.7%, as employers cut fewer jobs than had been expected.
GUTHRIE: The unemployment rate did not budge, holding steady at 9.7%. That is better than expected.
KOSIK: We’ve been waiting for this report. The news definitely better than expected.
REID: Today is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.
RUSH: That was Harry Reid. This is a big day in America. Only 36,000 people lost their jobs today. So losing 36,000 jobs, a rising underemployment number up to 16% and a 9.7% unemployment rate is what happens when Obama focuses like a laser on jobs. You want the lowlights of this? Because the Drive-Bys are once again looking at this with rose-colored glasses. It’s absurd to portray this as good news. Here are the lowlights of an absolutely depressing jobs reports, this is the result of Obama’s laser-like focus on jobs. Remember that. ‘US nonfarm payrolls declined for the 25th time in the past 26 months. Unemployment rose by 34,000 to stand at 14.9 million. The jobless rate stuck at 9.7%. Total hours worked fell by a seasonally adjusted 0.6%. Job losses in February were concentrated in construction, schools, transportation, insurance, and publishing,’ and except for the last two, the stimulus money was supposed to fix all that.
‘The U6 alternative gauge of the unemployment rate, which includes discouraged workers and those forced to work part-time, rose to 16.8% from 16.5%.’ An economist, Heidi Shierholz, for the Economic Policy Institute in Washington said, ‘What we see in this report’s essentially a job market on pause. The pace of decline has slowed dramatically but jobs are not being created to put this country’s nearly 15 million unemployed back to work.’ How would you like to consider the prospect here that we may be a nation in decline, on purpose, and that for the foreseeable future, as long as these people run the show we’re going to have a 10 to 12% unemployment rate, that that’s going to be the new norm? That’s going to be the new full employment. Full employment is statistically around 4.9, 5%. How about the new norm now being ten, 12%? Let me tell you something. The Obama administration at a lot of levels, over at the Pentagon, in the White House, they view their mission as to manage an America in decline. They want an America in decline. It is about time America got cut down to size.
I met with a guy today — this is fascinating. There’s a whole bunch of powerful people here in town in Palm Beach because the Club for Growth, the annual convention or whatever they call it is taking place here. And quite naturally, many of the attendees have sought a meeting with me. I have granted an audience to four of them. And one of them was this morning. I’m not going to name names. You would know them all. They come from many different spheres, if you will. One of them said to me today, ‘I was driving around a little over a year ago, about a year ago, and I was listening to you, Rush, and I cringed –‘ the guy’s a Republican ‘– I cringed when you said that Obama purposefully intends to destroy the country’s economy, take it, pare it down to size. I said, ‘No, no, that can’t possibly be true.’ It may be that he just doesn’t get it and that he’s not a leader, but, Rush, I have to tell you, I can see no other reason to explain this. We keep heaping mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake. This is more than somebody just not getting it.’
And then this person said to me, ‘We know some people in this administration. You get a couple of drinks in them and they really open up because their egos are huge. These two guys are over at the Pentagon. And they said quite honestly and very proudly, ‘We are here as part of the administration to manage America’s decline. Whatever you think that means, you’re watching it, America’s decline. We are here to manage it.” Not fix it, not correct it, but to manage it because they think this is what we deserve, that we’ve been too big shot for too long. I knew all this by instincts because I know people like this and I said to the guy to whom I granted the audience when he said, ‘I cringed when I heard you say that.’ I said, ‘I know it’s hard to hear.’ I said, ‘It’s difficult for me to hear myself say it.’ So this now makes four people who have said, ‘You know, a year ago, when I heard you talking about how radical this guy was, I said ‘no, Rush, it’s just the Democrats, it’s just some young, unqualified Democrat, that’s all it is.” Nobody thinks that anymore. They may think he’s unqualified, they may think he’s not a leader, they may think that he doesn’t get it, but they all understand now that his agenda is his agenda, and it doesn’t matter the impact his agenda has on the country.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let’s see. You want to talk about a tsunami? And, by the way, this unemployment number, don’t forget now that the first wave of temporary Census workers is factored into this employment report. But this is the Winston-Salem (North Carolina) Journal, and basically this tsunami that’s coming in May is college graduates. Now, I’m not sure if this number is national or just in North Carolina. I can’t tell. But, at any rate, ‘About 3 million students will graduate from college this year, and many will be looking for jobs,’ and you know kids today. They think that the moment the diploma’s in their hand that Goldman Sachs is going to call and offer ’em 250 grand a year and the house that their parents grew up in.
• 741,000: Number getting associate degrees.
• 1.6 MILLION: Number getting bachelor’s degrees.
• 659,000: Number getting master’s degrees.
• 94,400: Number getting first professional degrees, such as law or medical degrees.
• 63,500: Number getting doctorates,’ and the job market is ‘bleak.’
So you have to add these people who are going to be looking for jobs as they graduate in May, and they’re going to be listening to all these commencement addresses telling them how the future is theirs, how important they are, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It ain’t going to be a pretty sight.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: While Obama’s focused like a laser on jobs and granting amnesty to illegal aliens and clean energy to create jobs, all of this is the part that Obama relishes, managing America’s decline. That’s his purpose. That’s why the people with him are with him. He’s chosen people who are his mirror image. They are as radical as he is. In fact, he doesn’t appear radical, but if you look at every one of these people he finds, this latest guy that he’s appointed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals thinks that John Roberts is unqualified to be on the Supreme Court because he believes in free enterprise, he believes in private property rights.
This is a guy Obama wants on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, a guy who thinks the chief justice of the United States is too radical because he believes in private property rights and free enterprise. Well, if Obama picked this guy, that’s what Obama thinks, too.