In her new lackluster TV ad, GOP candidate for U.S. House Kristi Noem recycles footage from her Texas ad shoot, footage that her own campaign manager Josh Shields criticized back in April when he was sinking R. Blake Curd's campaign.* What gives? Did your original ad plan collapse, and you had to paste together all the old footage you could find just to satisfy your TV ad contracts? Amateur Hour with Team Kristi continues....
Noem's ad also recycles an old Wall Street Journal headline into a bullet point about the "jobless stimulus."
Jobless stimulus? Really? Then who are those nice folks at DSU with new jobs in health IT, thanks to stimulus dollars? And where did Sioux Falls get those nice new police officers:
"If it weren't for the grants, there's no question we wouldn't be adding police officers this year based on just where the economy is," Sioux Falls Police Chief Doug Barthel said.
The police department hired nine new officers this year through federal grants. They cover salaries and benefits for the next three years. The department also has drug task force detectives who are paid through grants. And the county and city each have a domestic violence detective funded solely through grants [Ben Dunsmoor, "Federal Grants Help Fund Local Law Enforcement," KELOLand.com, 2010.09.15].
Now I don't know if those Sioux Falls police grants are Recovery Act dollars. To find out, maybe we can check with Governor M. Michael Rounds, whose own spreadsheet connects Recovery Act spending in South Dakota with over 6500 jobs. And on SDPB's Dakota Midday, the governor's Secretary of Labor Pam Roberts just said her stats show 1000 more job openings this month than last month.
Hmm... I thought jobless meant no jobs. The above examples look like jobs.
As usual in South Dakota, it's Uncle Sam to the rescue. And it's Team Kristi pretending words mean what Team Kristi says and not what the words actually mean.
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Update 2010.09.17: Add 110 jobs in northeast South Dakota and adjoining areas thanks to broadband stimulus.
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*In an interview with Jonathan Ellis ("Ads in GOP House Race Start with Noem Commercial Filmed in Texas") published in that Sioux Falls paper on April 30, 2010, Shields pointedly observed that the Curd campaign would respond to Noem's opening ad salvo with ads filmed in South Dakota.
Cory,
ReplyDeleteNobody will ever accuse you of understanding macroeconomics and the use of the terms. The "Stimulus" was sold as a stimulant for the creation of private sector jobs and lead the economy to recovery. By every measure, the economy has gone the other way. And the private sector job total has declined by millions.
But, heck, if you think your attempt to spin the results this way is good politics, go for it.
Corey - love the blog because you point out facts then back them up with fact. Well done! I agree with you comment about amateur hour. If Noem thought the ads were good she wouldn't have pulled the plug on all her air time yesterday. Josh Shield is my hero right now because he and the Noem camp are handing us the election!
ReplyDeleteFrank: Thanks! Dang, if Team Kristi had to pull ads, that means they'll have to lose campaign time reshooting ads when Noem should be out meeting voters. Not good.
ReplyDeleteTroy: If you were running, I'd consider voting for you. You at least can explain what you're talking about.
Now I could have sworn, Troy, that Noem was saying the stimulus has not created jobs. I could have sworn that the items above show that the stimulus has created jobs. And I could have sworn that saying "Not X" when "X" is true constituted falsehood. But I guess before I assume Noem's words actually mean what they say, I need the Jones translation. (Maybe Team Kristi could hire you as a consultant!)
Troy, it's hard to believe that Mrs. Noem is anything other than a Macroeconomic Interlocutor Liquidating Fungibility.
ReplyDeleteI would vote for Troy Jones. I would also vote for Cory H. What are the chances of our having such an opportunity?
ReplyDelete*whene*
(wow, talk about "word verication" karma ...huh? huh?)
Troy, can you give us your feedback on this chart. It seems to show that jobs are coming back. Private sector jobs. How is this guy wrong?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025514.php
...another article from the same guy:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_09/025513.php
Excerpt:
"UNEMPLOYMENT RATE TICKS HIGHER, BUT PRIVATE SECTOR JOBS GROW.... Until the economy starts adding a significant number of jobs, the employment crisis will continue. And at this point, we're not even close to where we need to be.
That said, the monthly jobs report, published the first Friday of every month, actually exceeded expectations. By some measures, the U.S. economy was expected to lose 120,000 jobs in August, mostly as a result of government cutbacks and Census layoffs, with the private sector shedding about 10,000 jobs. The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics wasn't good, but it was significantly better than everyone thought it would be.
With the American economic recovery showing clear signs of slowdown, private employers added 67,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said on Friday. The number was more than forecast.
Over all, the nation lost 54,000 jobs in August, the agency said, as state and local governments, many of them grappling with severe budget deficits, cut 10,000 jobs last month. Another 114,000 temporary Census positions also came to an end. In all, governments cut 121,000 jobs last month.
The unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent in July.
Of particular interest is the breakdown between the public and private sectors. It's the loss of public-sector jobs, mostly from the wind-down of the Census, that brings the overall total into the negative. But while the private sector was predicted in some corners to have lost jobs in August, it actually added 67,000, which is far short of where it needs to be, but is still a respectable number under the circumstances.
Indeed, we've now seen eight consecutive months of job growth in the private sector, a streak we haven't seen in a long while."
My husband is one of those nine officers just hired. Thank you stimulus. We can talk rhetoric and talking points all day, but the truth of the matter is, South Dakotans are benefiting from those dollars.
ReplyDeleteYou can't have it both ways Cory!
ReplyDeleteThe bloated state gov't that candidate Heidepriem complains about seems to be supported by dollars from the stimulus.
I don't think I'm trying to have anything both ways, Michael. All I'm saying is that the stimulus has indeed created jobs, contrary to Noem's false campaign claim. The specific jobs mentioned aren't exactly "bloated state government" (certainly not the SFPD officers... and I'm not sure I'll support efforts to treat expansion in DSU workforce as "bloat").
ReplyDelete