BEFORE I GET TO THIS WEEK’S SUBJECT, I’d like to acknowledge a debt of gratitude owed to Marc Ethier, editor of The Herald and the man who offered me the chance to contribute my kvetches and yowlings to this newspaper each week. He’s been a gentle editor and an inspiration to make my writing better. Thank you, Marc.

Onward: According to the Employment Report released by the U.S. Department of Labor last Friday, the official unemployment rate dropped to the lowest of Obama’s presidency:

“Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 173,000 in August, and the unemployment rate edged down to 5.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in health care and social assistance and in financial activities. Manufacturing and mining lost jobs.”

There was even some good news regarding the “long-term unemployed”: “The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) held at 2.2 million in August and accounted for 27.7 percent of the unemployed. Over the past 12 months, the number of long-term unemployed is down by 779,000.”

There are a couple of things this latest report brings to mind.

First, I think it is worth comparing the records of Democratic versus Republican presidents with regard to job creation. In the last 40 years, there have been 20 years under Republican administrations and 19 years under Democratic presidents (it will be exactly even by January 2017, when President Obama leaves office). During that time, there were 38,833,000 jobs created under Democrats and 15,764,000 under Republicans — that’s less than half as many under Republicans. The only period when Republican job creation came anywhere close to Democratic job creation was the second term of Ronald Reagan, when 9,357,000 jobs were created. Even during the supposed economic disaster of Jimmy Carter’s single term in office — and, to be fair, there actually was stubbornly high price inflation during his presidency — there were 9,041,000 more jobs when Carter left the White House than when he arrived.

President Clinton’s two terms were the gold standard for job creation: 10,884,000 and 10,073,000 jobs were created during his first and second terms in office, respectively. By comparison, President George W. Bush actually left office with 463,000 fewer jobs than when he started, a particularly amazing feat when you remember that he presided over two wars, which typically stimulate economic activity.

The recent good employment news has increased calls from the political right for the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to head off supposedly looming (yet stubbornly invisible) inflation. Economist Paul Krugman has been a tireless opponent of those inflation hawks, recently writing:

“One enduring constant of the world economy since 2008 is the chorus of sober-sounding people declaring that the Fed must act responsibly and raise rates. A few years back, rising commodity prices and a flood of money into emerging markets were proof that low rates were dangerously inflationary and must be hiked. Now we have plunging commodity prices and a flood of money out of emerging markets; clearly, this shows that the Fed must do the right thing, and raise rates.”

Krugman continues: “The underlying claim in all such demands is that the low interest rates we’ve had since 2008 are ‘unnatural’ or ‘artificial.’ So it’s probably worth repeating that while very low rates may seem strange, they also seem fully justified by the economic situation. The original Wicksellian concept of the natural rate of interest defined that rate as the rate consistent with stable prices, with an economy that was neither too hot nor too cold. If we had had an unnaturally low rate these past seven years, we should have seen accelerating inflation; we haven’t.”

I think it is time to state the obvious: the Republican claim to be the business-friendly party is — judging by the performance of the real-world economy under their leadership — pretty clearly nonsense.

For example: If tax cuts are good for the economy, and tax increases bad — as virtually every Republican of national consequence claims — then why was the economy so good during Bill Clinton’s presidency and during Reagan’s second term? These are periods marked by major tax increases, particularly toward the top of the income scale — the people who are supposedly “job creators.” And why was George W. Bush’s presidency such an economic disaster, after he cut taxes deeply at the beginning of his first term?

Simply put, Republican economic policies don’t work in the real world. Krugman puts it a little more bluntly:

“If people consistently make logically incoherent, ignorant arguments, the duty of a commentator is to say just that — not to mislead readers by pretending that they’re actually serious and making sense. You shouldn’t make gratuitous insults — I have never, to my knowledge, declared that someone’s mother was a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries. But stupid/ignorant is as stupid/ignorant does, and influence changes nothing.

“Where I’ve been getting pushback lately is in my pronouncements that the whole Republican field is talking nonsense on economic policy. That’s a terrible thing to say, I’m told. But what if it’s true? And of course it is.”

Preach it, Paul.

Matt Talbot is a writer and poet, as well as an old Benicia hand.

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