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Like Bush, Obama Moves to Bury Bad Economic Data
Mar 04, 2010
The Bush administration had a nasty penchant for trying to bury bad economic news - a nasty penchant that I was intimately familiar with when working on the House Appropriations Committee. One of the most egregious examples of this came in 2003. Here's the Washington Post on 1/2/03:
U.S. Drops Report On Mass Layoffs;
Data Helped States Track Patterns of Industrial Demise
By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 2, 2003Citing a shortage of money, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will
stop publishing information about factory closings across the country, a
decision that some state officials and labor leaders are protesting.The monthly Labor Department analysis, known as the Mass Layoffs
Statistics report, detailed where workplaces with more than 50 employees
closed and what kinds of workers were affected.
Luckily, because of progressive pressure and public outcry, this Bush
move was overturned by Congress. But now, the same kind of thing is
back. According to today's
Washington Post, it looks like the Obama administration is
reprising the same scheme:
Obama administration plans to close
International Labor Comparisons officeBy Alec MacGillis
Wednesday, March 3, 2010Like a scorekeeper for the world, a tiny unit within the Bureau
of Labor Statistics tracks globalization's winners and losers, and the
results are not always pretty for the United States. Manufacturing jobs
here, for example, have fallen faster since 1979 than in Canada, Germany
or Japan. Compensation for those jobs dropped here in 2008 but jumped
in South Korea and Australia. Soon, however, Americans may be spared the
demoralization in these numbers: The White House wants to shutter the
unit that produces them.
In his State of the Union address, of course, Obama called for a
massive expansion of the NAFTA trade model into Colombia, South Korea
and Panama. So you can bet this announcement by the White House is no
accident - it's preemptive.
Apparently, no matter which party is in power, when bad news
hits, the response is bury the news - don't address the actual problem.
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David Sirota
David Sirota is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author living in Denver, Colorado. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work helping create the story for the film DON'T LOOK UP, which became one of the most widely viewed movies in Netflix's history. He is the founder and editor of The Daily Poster, an editor at large at Jacobin Magazine and a columnist at The Guardian. He served as Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign speechwriter in 2020. Sirota is the author of "Back to Our Future" and "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government--And How We Take It Back". His website: www.davidsirota.com.
The Bush administration had a nasty penchant for trying to bury bad economic news - a nasty penchant that I was intimately familiar with when working on the House Appropriations Committee. One of the most egregious examples of this came in 2003. Here's the Washington Post on 1/2/03:
U.S. Drops Report On Mass Layoffs;
Data Helped States Track Patterns of Industrial Demise
By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 2, 2003Citing a shortage of money, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will
stop publishing information about factory closings across the country, a
decision that some state officials and labor leaders are protesting.The monthly Labor Department analysis, known as the Mass Layoffs
Statistics report, detailed where workplaces with more than 50 employees
closed and what kinds of workers were affected.
Luckily, because of progressive pressure and public outcry, this Bush
move was overturned by Congress. But now, the same kind of thing is
back. According to today's
Washington Post, it looks like the Obama administration is
reprising the same scheme:
Obama administration plans to close
International Labor Comparisons officeBy Alec MacGillis
Wednesday, March 3, 2010Like a scorekeeper for the world, a tiny unit within the Bureau
of Labor Statistics tracks globalization's winners and losers, and the
results are not always pretty for the United States. Manufacturing jobs
here, for example, have fallen faster since 1979 than in Canada, Germany
or Japan. Compensation for those jobs dropped here in 2008 but jumped
in South Korea and Australia. Soon, however, Americans may be spared the
demoralization in these numbers: The White House wants to shutter the
unit that produces them.
In his State of the Union address, of course, Obama called for a
massive expansion of the NAFTA trade model into Colombia, South Korea
and Panama. So you can bet this announcement by the White House is no
accident - it's preemptive.
Apparently, no matter which party is in power, when bad news
hits, the response is bury the news - don't address the actual problem.
David Sirota
David Sirota is an award-winning journalist and bestselling author living in Denver, Colorado. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his work helping create the story for the film DON'T LOOK UP, which became one of the most widely viewed movies in Netflix's history. He is the founder and editor of The Daily Poster, an editor at large at Jacobin Magazine and a columnist at The Guardian. He served as Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign speechwriter in 2020. Sirota is the author of "Back to Our Future" and "Hostile Takeover: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government--And How We Take It Back". His website: www.davidsirota.com.
The Bush administration had a nasty penchant for trying to bury bad economic news - a nasty penchant that I was intimately familiar with when working on the House Appropriations Committee. One of the most egregious examples of this came in 2003. Here's the Washington Post on 1/2/03:
U.S. Drops Report On Mass Layoffs;
Data Helped States Track Patterns of Industrial Demise
By Kirstin Downey
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, January 2, 2003Citing a shortage of money, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will
stop publishing information about factory closings across the country, a
decision that some state officials and labor leaders are protesting.The monthly Labor Department analysis, known as the Mass Layoffs
Statistics report, detailed where workplaces with more than 50 employees
closed and what kinds of workers were affected.
Luckily, because of progressive pressure and public outcry, this Bush
move was overturned by Congress. But now, the same kind of thing is
back. According to today's
Washington Post, it looks like the Obama administration is
reprising the same scheme:
Obama administration plans to close
International Labor Comparisons officeBy Alec MacGillis
Wednesday, March 3, 2010Like a scorekeeper for the world, a tiny unit within the Bureau
of Labor Statistics tracks globalization's winners and losers, and the
results are not always pretty for the United States. Manufacturing jobs
here, for example, have fallen faster since 1979 than in Canada, Germany
or Japan. Compensation for those jobs dropped here in 2008 but jumped
in South Korea and Australia. Soon, however, Americans may be spared the
demoralization in these numbers: The White House wants to shutter the
unit that produces them.
In his State of the Union address, of course, Obama called for a
massive expansion of the NAFTA trade model into Colombia, South Korea
and Panama. So you can bet this announcement by the White House is no
accident - it's preemptive.
Apparently, no matter which party is in power, when bad news
hits, the response is bury the news - don't address the actual problem.
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