(This particular post is not satire)
July 14, 2015
July 14, 2015
So Jeb Bush made a Romney-esque comment
that people need to work "longer hours."
Here's what he said:
Bush: “My aspiration for the country
and I believe we can achieve it, is 4% growth as far as the eye can
see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce
participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means
that people need to work longer hours and, through their
productivity, gain more income for their families. That's the only
way we're going to get out of this rut that we're in.”
The media ran with the “longer hours”
bit as proof of Jeb being out of touch.
However, in the conservative media,
they tell the story much differently.
Business Insider ran this story,
insisting that Jeb was being taken out of context:
On Wednesday, Democrats seized on
Bush's comment in an interview with the editorial board of New
Hampshire's Union Leader. He said growing the economy would require
people to 'work longer hours.'
But there's much more context to
that statement, something Bush's campaign tried to explain when it
spent Thursday morning clarifying that he was talking about part-time
jobs.
Here's the full exchange:
BUSH: My aspiration for the country
and I believe we can achieve it, is 4% growth as far as the eye can
see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive, workforce
participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows. It means
that people need to work longer hours and, through their
productivity, gain more income for their families. That's the only
way we're going to get out of this rut that we're in.
QUESTION: To keep us from taking it
out of context, what you meant to say — when you say more hours you
mean full-time work.
BUSH: Given the opportunity to work.
Yeah, absolutely.
QUESTION: Not that a full-time guy
or somebody working two jobs needs to be working even more time.
BUSH: Absolutely not. Their incomes
need to grow. It's not going to grow in an environment where the
costs of doing business are so extraordinarily high here. Healthcare
costs are rising. In many places the cost of doing business is
extraordinarily high, and the net result of that is that business
start up rates are at an all-time low. Work-force participation rates
are low. If anyone is celebrating this anemic recovery, then they are
totally out of touch. The simple fact is people are really
struggling. So giving people a chance to work longer hours has got to
be part of the answer. If not, you are going to see people lose hope.
And that's where we are today.
Okay, wow, so Jeb immediately clarified
that he was talking about people who are working part time being
given the opportunity to work full-time. He didn't mean we should all
be working longer hours.
That damn liberal media is just trying
to quote him out of context!
The conservative media seized on this
transcript from Business Insider and has generated plenty of articles
about the liberal media and how they lie and quote Republicans out of
context.
The Washington Examiner ran this story:
As made plain during the interview,
the last thing Bush meant was that struggling poor and middle class
Americans already toiling full time must work longer hours if they
want to get ahead.
But plug 'People need to work longer
hours' into an Internet search engine and what comes up are pages of
headlines similar to this one: 'Jeb Bush: People need to work longer
hours.' Democrats moved swiftly to undercut Bush, scion of a wealthy,
politically-connected family, with attacks...
Yes, they actually used the phrase “but
plug” in the Washington Examiner.
After crying foul, they then reproduce
the same transcript as Business Insider. Except they make one change.
Rather than saying “Bush:” and “Question:” in the
trasnscript, it alternates between “Bush:” and “U-L:” meaning
the New Hampshire Union Leader.
Something
called “Front Page Mag” Subtitled: “A Project of the David
Horowitz Freedom Center” ran the story as:
They say Krugman “tried to clumsily
jump on the Jeb Bush 'more hours' bandwagon.” Then they reproduce
the transcript from Business Insider. Then they sum it up as Paul
Krugman either not reading the full quote or he did read it and chose
to lie about it. Then they call him either “ridiculously sloppy”
or “ridiculously dishonest.”
Here's the thing.
You see that
full-context exchange?
It didn't happen.
The Union Leader put the
video of that interview online, you can watch the whole thing here: http://www.c-span.org/video/?327013-1/new-hampshire-union-leader-interview-jeb-bush
Go to 16:15 and press play for the
relevant section.
Follow along with the Business Insider
transcript and see if you can spot the problem...
If you can't access the video, here's
a transcript of what's said
Jeb: My aspiration for the country
and I believe we can achieve it, is 4 percent growth as far as the
eye can see. Which means we have to be a lot more productive,
workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern
lows. It means that people need to work longer hours and,
through their productivity, gain more income for their
families. That's the only way we're going to get out of this
rut that we're in. And you can't grow at 4% unless you do a
whole series of things, one of which, maybe the most important of
which is tax reform. So simplifying the code as dramatically as you
can. Lowering--eliminating as many of the tax expenditures that
exist, and lowering rates, and shifting power away from Washington,
and all of the protectors of the protected class. I mean go from
Dulles to Washington... in every building is full of people who are
making a lot of money...or trying to create another sanctuary or
fighting to tear down another one. It's all about something that
shouldn't exist. We should be shifting power away from Washington,
and one of the most dramatic ways you can do it is by simplifying
the tax code.
He goes on to talk about the Estonian
model of taxation, shrinking the federal government, then sanctuary
cities, illegal immigration, marijuana legalization, and many other things.
Everything that follows Bush's
first quote in the Business Insider transcript is not from this
interview.
So when they say this is a transcript:
BUSH: My aspiration for the country
… people need to work longer hours ... That's the only way we're
going to get out of this rut that we're in.
QUESTION: To keep us from taking it
out of context, what you meant to say — when you say more hours
you mean full-time work.
They're neglecting to mention that
between Jeb saying “this rut that we're in” and someone asking
him “To keep us from taking it out of context...” he had traveled to a different city, attended
another event, and then addressed totally different reporters. In fact, between those two quotes being said, the first quote had become a gaffe, been spread on twitter, and the next quote is actually in response to the gaffe already being a PR problem for Jeb!
By 4:32 pm, the 21 second video was on
twitter.
At 6:30 pm, Jeb attended an event at
the VFW in Hudson, NH. After that event ended, he spoke to reporters
and that is when the rest of the “transcript” is from, which you can see at The Guardian
Bush was asked about the comment by
reporters after a town hall event in Hudson. He said the US economy
needs to grow far faster than currently to allow people to move from
part-time work to full-time so they can better provide for their
families.
...
“If anyone is celebrating this
anemic recovery, then they are totally out of touch,” Bush said.
“The simple fact is people are really struggling. So giving people
a chance to work longer hours has got to be part of the answer. If
not, you are going to see people lose hope. And that’s where we
are today.”
See that second
quote, that's what's in the Business Insider article. At least 4
hours or so had transpired between the quote being spread as a gaffe on twitter and Jeb!s “clarification.”
Business Insider and others have mashed
two interviews together into a phony transcript and then attacked the
media, liberals, Hillary, Paul Krugman, et al. For quoting Bush out
of context and proving it by creating fake context.
Maybe Jeb did mean that people working
part-time should be given the opportunity to work full-time when he
said that original quote. In any case, Business Insider and others
have created fake context and reported it as proof that he was taken
out of context, and that should be a story.
So let's give Jeb a chance to explain
what he really meant:
Jeb: If we’re going to grow the
economy people need to be—stop being part-time workers. They need
to be having access to greater opportunities to work. Look under this
administration they have created rules that make it harder for people
to work. This overtime rule is going to end up creating not more
opportunities and higher income for people—people are going to end
up working less. Obamacare has forced people, businesses to hire
people for 30 hours rather than 40 hours. Nancy Pelosi and Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton think now that’s great because they are
free to pursue their dreams that they might want to do. Well I think
people want to work harder to be able to have more money in their own
pockets, not to be dependent on government. You can take it out
of context all you want, but high sustained growth means that people
work 40 hours rather than 30 hours and by our success they have money
and disposable income for their families to decide how they want to
spend it rather than getting in line and being dependent upon
government.
So what he's really saying is that
businesses trying to avoid Obamacare and save money by cutting
people's hours to keep them technically part-time and thus screwing
them out of health care...shouldn't be doing that. So is he saying
businesses should stop screwing their employees? Or is he saying we
should get rid of Obamacare?
It seems that Jeb thinks it's not the
businesses fault that they screwing their employees by denying them
healthcare. Instead it's Obama and Pelosi's fault for forcing
businesses to do this to their workers. It would be one thing if he
attacked Obama for not envisioning the unintended consequences, but
he doesn't say that, instead apparently Obama likes that employers
did this because his goal was to get people more free time and be
more dependent on the government.
So he wasn't saying you should work
longer hours because you're lazy. He's saying we should get rid of
Obamacare so you can work longer hours and still not have healthcare.
After watching the whole interview with
the Union Leader, I have to say that there's a certain section in
which Jeb! Seems to be doing a great impersonation of his brother.
It's worth a watch, trust me: http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4543699/jeb-w-bush
It's worth a watch, trust me: http://www.c-span.org/video/?c4543699/jeb-w-bush
