The Latest Unbelievable Republican Economic Theory

Mississippi has chronic unemployment. For something like forever, unemployment in Mississippi was the worst in the nation. In 2010 it went up past 10 percent. That is high. For a few months it was higher than 11 percent. There was no state anywhere that had a higher unemployment rate. Alabama was close for a couple of months. Then the 10 percent in Alabama began to go down a little while Mississippi still climbed.

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But Georgia came to the rescue. In 2014, Republican Governor Nathan Deal of Georgia did what everyone thought was impossible. He raised Mississippi from absolute worst unemployment to only second worst. In September 2014, Georgia bumped Mississippi and went to the head of the line.

Unemployment looked like it was just beginning to get better throughout the nation, but in Georgia it was going up and up. Mississippi went down to 7.6 percent. Georgia unemployment went up past 8 percent.

Georgia’s Nathan Deal did what any politician in charge would do. He offered explanations. It wasn’t some sort of industry fall off, like coal in Kentucky. It wasn’t bad weather or a demographic shift. It was not an educational shortfall with Georgia workers finding themselves without requisite technical skills. It wasn’t some sort of regional downturn.

As Nathan Deal explained it, the problem was certainly not the conservative economic policies of Georgia. Not with an enlightened chief executive leading the state administration. Nathan Deal is about the best there is. You can ask Nathan Deal or anyone who is employed by him.

Yet the economy in Georgia was the worst in the nation. How could it be? Governor Deal described it as an irony.

It’s ironic that in a year in which Republican governors are leading some of the states that are making the most progress, that they almost, without exception, are classified as having a bump in their unemployment rates. Whereas states that are under Democrat governors’ control, they are all showing that their unemployment rate has dropped. Now, I don’t know how you account for that.

– Governor Nathan Deal (R-GA), September 18, 2014

He was right about states led by Republicans doing much worse than states led by Democrats. Could the obvious cause be true? Could Republican policies be a big mistake that ought to be changed? Oh no, foolish mortals.

Nathan Deal had a better answer.

It was a conspiracy. Not a conspiracy that actually targeted states for unemployment. It was a conspiracy of numbers.

Maybe there is some influence here that we don’t know about. But when you say that California is in a better position in terms of unemployment than the state of Georgia, there’s just something that just does not ring true.

– Governor Nathan Deal (R-GA), September 18, 2014

It was an interesting theory. Unfortunately, a prime part in the high unemployment rate had to have been played by one major conspirator. That culprit was Governor Deal himself.

On Thursday, the state labor department reported that Georgia’s jobless rate jumped from 7.7 percent in July to 8.1 percent.

In July, Georgia had the second worst jobless rate next to Mississippi. But Mississippi’s rate slipped to 7.9 percent in August.

– The Atlanta Journal Constitution, September 19, 2014

The Georgia State Labor Department, Governor Nathan Deal’s Labor Department had issued an unemployment report that was identical to the report issued by the great federal conspiracy.

Other Republicans have explanations for bad state economies. Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas is blaming his fellow Republicans, the ones in the state legislature, for not raising taxes on food and mortgages, then finding ways to get more taxes from the elderly and the unemployed.

But Georgia Governor Nathan Deal’s conspiracy theory had to have been the most creative. Nobody else would have the nerve to say that a grand conspiracy had produced phony unemployment figures.

It doesn’t take a bad economy to produce that sort of conspiracy. Good economic news qualifies, too.

President Obama’s policies seem to have produced the best unemployment rate since the Clinton administration. Former Texas Governor Rick Perry has an explanation for America’s dramatically improving economy. The explanation may sound familiar.

When you look at the unemployment rate today, that’s not the true unemployment rate, it’s been massaged, it’s been doctored.

– Former Texas Governor Rick Perry, January 26, 2015

Forget Supply Side, throw away the Laffer curve and the napkin it came in on.

The new Republican theory, the explanation that fits every circumstance can fit this one too. Obama’s economy, the economy finally achieving a dramatic surge upward, is all a conspiracy.

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