WSJ column's falsehood: Bush admin did not make claims about jobs "saved or created"
Criticizing the Obama administration, a Wall Street Journal column included the false claim that the Bush administration never touted its initiatives in terms of how many jobs would be "saved or created." In fact, Bush's Agriculture Department did so repeatedly.
In a June 9 Wall Street Journal opinion piece, News Corp. vice president William McGurn, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, wrote that Tony Fratto, a former Bush communications aide turned CNBC on-air contributor, "sees a double standard at play" regarding the Obama administration's statements about the number of jobs the economic stimulus program has "saved or created." McGurn wrote that Fratto told him: "We would never have used a formula like 'save or create.' ... To begin with, the number is pure fiction -- the administration has no way to measure how many jobs are actually being 'saved.' And if we had tried to use something this flimsy, the press would never have let us get away with it." In fact, Bush's Department of Agriculture repeatedly stated that its economic initiatives had "saved or created" a specific number of jobs, or would in the future.
Fratto made a similar claim in a June 2 CNBC.com blog post titled, "The White House 'Jobs-Saved' Deception," writing: "If I -- or even my predecessors in the Clinton Administration -- had tried to pull off this ridiculous gimmick we would have been run out of town. I don't even believe it's possible to look back and accurately measure the 'job-saving' impact of Bush or Clinton Administration policies, let alone to measure in real time, or project into the future."
In fact, examples of the Bush administration touting initiatives in terms of jobs "saved or created" include:
* June 24, 2004, remarks by then-Agriculture Secretary Ann M. Veneman (retrieved from Nexis, emphasis added):
Our Rural Development programs also help communities with infrastructure such as electricity, water and telecommunications and with economic development assistance. We have estimated that our rural development programs have saved or created more than 500,000 jobs just since the Bush Administration took office in January of 2001. Recently we have seen more positive numbers showing that the U.S. economy created nearly a quarter of a million jobs last month alone for a total of 1 million jobs created in the last three months and about 1.5 million jobs in the past nine months.
* A quotation from Mike Johanns -- who replaced Veneman as agriculture secretary -- in a March 24, 2005, Agriculture Department news release (emphasis added):
Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns today announced the selection of 26 loan and grant recipients in 14 states that will receive $9.2 million in rural business development funds.
"I applaud the local community leadership for their efforts to secure these investments, which are needed to create economic opportunities and improve the quality of life available in their community," said Johanns. "These funds are part of the Bush Administration's ongoing efforts to spur economic development in rural areas and will help save or create more than 1,800 jobs."
The grants and loans are awarded through USDA Rural Development to electric and telecommunications cooperative organizations, which in turn provide loans or grants to support local economic or community development efforts. These funds are also part of an important leveraging effort. The $9.2 million in USDA investments will be matched with $59.7 million in additional investments to support a variety of businesses and community ventures, including community facilities and infrastructure, improving access to local medical care and other projects that encourage a favorable climate for jobs and growth.
