KeithHennessey.com

Conventional wisdom says the tenure of President George W. Bush was dominated by partisanship. This conventional wisdom ignores significant bipartisan legislative accomplishments led by President Bush. If President Obama wants bipartisan legislative success, he could learn a few things from his predecessor.

The U.S. economy lost a net 85,000 jobs in December 2008. The unemployment rate held constant at 10.0%.

The President’s advisors are devoting a lot of communications effort to framing the employment picture. The “jobs battle” is likely to continue as a first-tier economic and political issue through 2010. Here is some context on the intersection among the economics, the policy, and the politics.

On the first Friday of each month the Labor Department releases the employment report for the prior month.  In the White House we used to call it Jobs Day, and it’s a fairly big deal when the economy is in transition.
Today is Jobs Day.  Here are the two most important facts from the May employment [...]

Almost two months ago, President Obama set a specific employment goal for his Administration:
I think my initial measure of success is creating or saving 4 million jobs.

It is clear that this “create or save” phrase is now a standard and important part of the Administration’s economic message.
Greg Mankiw quickly identified both the quantitative ambiguity and [...]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the March employment report at 8:30 am.  Here is the least you need to know:

Net payroll employment declined in March by 663,000 jobs.
That’s a terrible number, and in line with expectations.
The unemployment rate increased from 8.1% to 8.5%.

Much of the press coverage talks about “5.1 million jobs lost since [...]

As I explained yesterday in part 4 of this series, the President delivered different substantive messages to General Motors and Chrysler.  I would like now to focus on one element of that message, because there’s an enormous hole in yesterday’s announcement, and it appears that the press missed it.  It appears that the Administration did [...]

President Obama spoke about loans to the auto industry at 11 AM this morning in the Grand Foyer of the White House.
In the first three parts of this series, we (1) covered some background, (2) analyzed the President’s options, and (3) learned about the loans President Bush authorized in December, which laid the groundwork for [...]

The White House press office announced this evening that the President will speak about the auto industry tomorrow (Monday), at 11 AM, in the Grand Foyer of the White House.
The press is reporting that General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner has agreed to step down at the request of the Administration.
If you have read the first [...]

In part one of this series I reviewed some background and long-term problems facing the U.S. auto manufacturers.  I pointed out that General Motors and Chrysler, and the Obama Administration, face a more immediate cash flow problem.  The Obama Administration is in the midst of rolling out the President’s new game plan.  I’d like to [...]