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  • Lynn Saternow

    saternow, lynn 2010
February 11, 2012

Who’s responsible for uptick in economy? It’s hard to figure

By Lynn Saternow -----

---- — There was one thing I was taught years ago when I was a young reporter: Every politician lies, but the real story is the reason behind the lies.

If you ask politicians, they will tell you it’s not really lying – most of the time it’s just not telling the whole truth. Or maybe it’s just stretching the truth a little bit (or a lot).

Democrats and Republicans alike do it. But the scary part is: They have become so accustomed to it that I’m not sure they even realize what the truth is anymore.

I bring this up as President Obama and the Democrats are taking credit for the drop in unemployment that makes the economy look so much better. And to the American public, the good news is having an effect as Obama’s approval rating appears to be going up as unemployment numbers go down.

This has the Republicans in a tizzy. So what can they do to counter that?

A year ago the conservative group started bashing Obama for the high unemployment rate and the state of the economy, which in truth both started to worsen during the Bush administration. And members of the “Party of No” tried to do everything they could to stop Obama from boosting the economy.

Still, the buck stops on the desk of the president as Harry Truman told us, so Obama had to bear the brunt of the sad economy.

But when the unemployment rate started to get better in the last few months, Republicans were suddenly worried that it will hurt their bid for the presidency. So how do they handle that?

They start saying that the unemployment figures don’t tell the whole truth about how many people aren’t working, and that it’s much higher than we are being told.

I’m sure that’s true. Unemployment figures have never been completely real in my opinion.

However, and this is a BIG however: Isn’t it still the same formula used when the economy was booming under Bill Clinton or when George Bush was in office and reaped the benefits early in his first term from the carryover from Clinton?

Why didn’t Republicans complain about the way unemployment was calculated when Bush was in there?

Let’s face it: Figures lie and liars figure. That’s the way it will always be.

For the American public, after awhile we all pretty much get tired of trying to figure out for ourselves who is really telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

According to polls, more than 60 percent of Americans say they want to vote out everybody who’s in Congress. And voters have the right idea. But the problem is: Are the people running for office any better than the ones we have in there?

But they can’t be any worse, can they?

The voters have a chance to make a difference. But do they really have a choice?

For example in this area, Mike Kelly is the person who represents many of us. He hasn’t been part of the solution; he has been part of the problem. So why isn’t some good Republican, who is really interested in change, running against him to give conservatives a proper choice.

The same goes for areas where a Democrat is in office. If a good person runs, he or she should replace the current officeholder for the general election.

That way in the fall, we would have two new people running for office and we would have a better choice.

Unfortunately, the way the current two-party system works, people don’t run against incumbents in the primary. So the status quo continues in Washington and even though the average Americans don’t like it, they don’t do enough to stop it.

And because of that: Figures will continue to lie and liars will continue to figure.

Go figure.



The Herald’s Lynn Saternow writes this column each Saturday for the Opinion Page. He can be reached at lsaternow@sharonherald.com

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