Brady: Fast and Loose with the Truth
Gubernatorial hopeful Bill Brady was in Macomb yesterday. He criticized Governor Blagojevich for having not visited Macomb as Governor. A good point, but Brady should have stopped there.
Instead, he went on to criticize Blagojevich on job creation, a hot topic in Western Illinois. According to The Peoria Journal Star, Brady blamed Blagojevich for the fact Illinois has lost 200,000-300,000 jobs. A great soundbite. Only one problem: it's simply not true.
According to the U.S. Dept. of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois has created over 200,000 private sector jobs since Blagojevich became Governor, with 4.866 million jobs when he took over in January, 2003 and a preliminary 5.068 million jobs as of Sept., 2005.
And while the Illinois Chamber of Commerce's Doug Whitley likes to rail that Illinois has lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs over the last five years, what Whitley fails to mention is that 166,000 of those jobs were lost while the Republicans were in charge. Illinois started 1999 with 900,000 manufacturing jobs, and by the time Democrats took over in 2003, we were down to 734,000. At last report, Illinois had 692,000 manufacturing jobs.
In fact, if you look at the boom years of the nineties, when all of America was prospering, you'll see that the Edgar administration (of which Whitley was a part) did very little to create manufacturing jobs, with an annual growth rate of well below 1%.
Numbers don't lie, my friends. But Brady does.
P.S. Sorry, I tried to put Bureau tables in, but they were too tough to read. Don't take my word for it. Go here to create your own.
Instead, he went on to criticize Blagojevich on job creation, a hot topic in Western Illinois. According to The Peoria Journal Star, Brady blamed Blagojevich for the fact Illinois has lost 200,000-300,000 jobs. A great soundbite. Only one problem: it's simply not true.
According to the U.S. Dept. of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics, Illinois has created over 200,000 private sector jobs since Blagojevich became Governor, with 4.866 million jobs when he took over in January, 2003 and a preliminary 5.068 million jobs as of Sept., 2005.
And while the Illinois Chamber of Commerce's Doug Whitley likes to rail that Illinois has lost 200,000 manufacturing jobs over the last five years, what Whitley fails to mention is that 166,000 of those jobs were lost while the Republicans were in charge. Illinois started 1999 with 900,000 manufacturing jobs, and by the time Democrats took over in 2003, we were down to 734,000. At last report, Illinois had 692,000 manufacturing jobs.
In fact, if you look at the boom years of the nineties, when all of America was prospering, you'll see that the Edgar administration (of which Whitley was a part) did very little to create manufacturing jobs, with an annual growth rate of well below 1%.
Numbers don't lie, my friends. But Brady does.
P.S. Sorry, I tried to put Bureau tables in, but they were too tough to read. Don't take my word for it. Go here to create your own.
posted by Yellow Dog Democrat at 9:05 AM
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