Jobs numbers suck? Find a different way to count them.

Via Don Surber:

White House panics on jobs

I got a note from the Pro-Publica publicist pushing a post at its Web site: “Michael Grabell reports that the White House will no longer keep a cumulative tally of jobs created or saved, and instead it will count any person who works on a project funded with stimulus money—even if that person was never in danger of losing his or her job. The OMB added the new guidelines last month to simplify the counting rules, but Grabell notes, ‘the new guidance could significantly change what the public sees’.”

I smell desperation coming from the White House.

Fortunately, as Grabell pointed out, a congressman is calling the White House out on this attempt to rationalize their $787 billion stimulus — which sank the economy.

“But Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the Obama administration is making the job numbers even more misleading and is trying to pump them up by counting jobs that weren’t created or retained. He outlined his concerns in a letter Friday to the government’s stimulus watchdog, Earl Devaney,” Grabell reported.

That letter is here

Not only is President Obama running out of political capital, he is wasting his credibility

Working in a financial institution I see the effects of unemployment every day.  I know that the stimulus has failed and so do the people I deal with who are struggling to make ends meet on their unemployment checks.  The White House can use whatever system they like to say that one plus one equals five but those people who are desperate for a job, any job, to feed their family and keep a roof over their head stopped falling for the administration spin months ago.
 
I'm not sure that Obama has any credibility left to waste.