I like to watch CNN's "Capital Gang" just to see what new howlers Kate O'Beirne comes up with. She rarely disappoints. This is from
yesterday's show transcript:
KATE O'BEIRNE, CAPITAL GANG: Look, the economic news was clearly welcome. The unemployment rate is virtually the same as it was in 1994, when nobody thought we were looking at a Hoover-type recession, but maybe people feel more strongly about an unemployment rate of over 6 percent nowadays. I suspect people feel more strongly about their own capital formation in the stock market, but we'll see if that's the case.
Kate thinks that most people feel more strongly about their own capital formation in the stock market than they do about jobs. Well, in Kate's cushy, overpaid Republican world, that's probably true. I wonder if she really doesn't know about the rest of us?
Al Hunt attempted dialogue, thus:
HUNT: ... Now, I'll tell you something, Kate. You're right, it was 6 percent unemployment in 1994, down 20 percent from the year before, right after the Bill Clinton tax increase.
O'BEIRNE: (UNINTELLIGIBLE) talking about Herbert Hoover.
HUNT: Because Bill Clinton was lowering the deficit. It lowered by $100 million. Inflation was down, the stock market was up. If George Bush can replicate that (UNINTELLIGIBLE) performance in the one year after the tax increase, it will be a great success.
O'BEIRNE: Bob, (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Democrats' remedy. Every single Democrat running for president wants to raise taxes. That is not going to create jobs.
HUNT: It did in 1994.
O'BEIRNE: Every single one of them.
HUNT: It did in '93 and '94.
When Bill Clinton raised taxes in his first term, Republicans screamed their lungs out that the economy would be ruined. Instead, we had an economic expansion of historic proportions. They still can't bring themselves to admit they were wrong.
And the great Bob "Let's compromise national security to help Bush" Novaks chimed in:
NOVAK: Let me set you correct, Mark, a little bit, because you guys play that class warfare, you're way out of date. Oh, boy, jobs, jobs, jobs, you know, there's a lot of people in this country -- you don't like it -- but the middle class has stocks, they have 401(k)s, and they're very interested in the stock market.
Yes, a lot of working people have money in the stock market through 401Ks and company stock purchase plans. However, that money is not exactly a substitute for a job. Joe Lunchbucket doesn't come home from being laid off and declare, "We don't have to worry about prolonged unemployment! I have a 401K plan!"
Do these people even live in the same time-space continuum as the rest of us?