It might help to put some of their claims into context. Consider the following.
Total job creation under Obama has been pretty weak, there's really no debating that. But most people miss the fact that this weakness comes from significant declines in public (i.e. government) employment. Obama has overseen the largest decline in public employment in modern history. Personally, I think this is a terrible thing. But then again, I'm not the kind of person that blames government for all of America's problems.
Private employment growth has been stronger during Obama's first term than during either of the four-year terms of George W. Bush. Although, to be fair, those were some of the worst years for private job growth in modern history. So Obama's first term comes in fourth-to-last place. Better than both Bush years and better than Eisenhower's second term.
So if you are going to call job creation under Obama a catastrophe, you'd have to say the same thing about the Bush years too. And considering that Romney's economic policy and team are incredibly similar to that of George W. Bush, there's almost no reason to believe that it'd be better than what Obama has accomplished.
There's also a more meta argument here. If you were going to pick a generic Democrat or Republican to lead the economy, who would be more likely to create more jobs? The data for the post-war period side overwhelmingly with Democrats. Including Obama's weak tenure, Democrats have created 42m jobs since Kennedy entered office, while Republicans have created 29m, despite the fact that Republicans held the office for 28 years to Democtrats' 23. Even on a broader scale, going back to Truman as Politfact does, Democrats substantially outperform Republicans.
Image courtesy of Bloomberg Government. The original is available here. |
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