i think you could make the argument about iran, but i happen to agree with alan on two points, number one there is plenty other things you can go after him on, and number two, i think it s a smart answer. i frankly think he has a smart response, and i get a little bit i think it s cringe inducing when some of my colleagues on the right go after him and pound away over things like well, for example, the unemployment rate going down, whether it was 4/10 th-s of a point. i heard my friends and colleagues almost turn themselves inside out to try to complain about that decline and say he s not to be given credit for it. he does get credit for taking out osama bin laden. i think he should get credit as commande commander-in-chief for some of the victories gained al-qaida. the policies were started under president bush but obama has continued that campaign of drone attacks, and, again, give him credit for osama bin laden. i think it was a smart response, i think republicans look petty,
of it. because they know, look, having been in the white house, those, this the first friday of every month he when you ve got difficult difficulties it s not a pleasant time in the white house starting on thursday night. the president gets to know the number, nobody else gets to know until friday morning and there s nothing you can do about it and it comes and let s be clear about this. there are three numbers to pay attention to in addition to 8.6% unemployment. first of all, the number of jobs created was 120,000, now, that s less than we need to have in order to accommodate all the people who are entering, the work force, it s anemic job growth. more than half of the reason that the unemployment rate dropped 4/10 of a percent was, 300,000 americans became so discouraged, they re no longer looking for work. and then finally, we had unemployment claims of 402,000, that s up above expectations, and they ve been up for two weeks in a row. a lot of these 120,000 jobs are temporary job
cautiously expressing some consideration, but they must be delighted. well, i think that they are, but no one, martin, is declaring it a christmas miracle just yet. that little white behind you, notwithstanding. the white house has always been very careful, ever since the first year, the first spring that we went through here, when people started talking about green shoots in the economy. obviously, that didn t happen. what has ensued is an ever-rising unemployment rate, getting up near 10%, at one point, it has steadily dropped. but each month, the news is just incremental. it ticks up a tenth of a point, goes down a tenth of a point. a drop of 4/10 today, certainly a big deal here at the white house. still very cautious, saying the economy is healing, but there s a long way to go for 13.3 million people still out of work. the president appeared earlier today. he was with president clinton, as it happens, talking about one of his green initiatives under the we can t wait rubric. but
key swing states are facing higher unemployment rates as well. compared with july, illinois and pennsylvania saw the biggest one month increases in their rates, up 4/10% each. the culprit there, the government. yes, cutbacks in government jobs hitting hard. nevada was another high jobless rate, 13.4%. overall, unemployment is highest in the west and lowest in the northeast. but look around you. if you are unemployed, you are competing with 4.5 people for every job. usually it is one to three. no wonder the president is trying to come up with another answer this week. more on the so-called buffett rule later this afternoon. shannon, back to you. shannon: everybody can t wait to hear more about that and how it is going to play out. thank you very much. okay, thank you. shannon: fire breathing dragons and lobster cars? how cool is that? this they come from interesting
and yeah, so you can say here s this 4/10 of one cent that goes to nasa, funds all the nasa centers, the space station, the hubble telescope, the rovers. if you re cleaning out your hard drive if it s full, are you going to go to that one-half of 1% and say oh, now i have room. this is not where you save the money by removing the money you re spending on nasa. how important do you think it is for a nation almost symbolically that it continues to have big science projects? big science projects when done well and done effectively can create signed of a zeitgeist in the nation where everyone feels like the future is within their reach. that s, of course, what we all felt back in the 1960s, the world s fair embodied this in terms of not only scientific achievements, but it influenced architectu architecture, people s dreams and what kids majored in in school and this is harder to measure by test scores.