Many things bothered me about Senator John Kerry’s “facts” during Wednesday’s presidential debate, but one thing keeps floating to the surface of my mind: Kerry lied when he said, “He's [Bush] also the only president in 72 years to lose jobs -- 1.6 million jobs lost.” I would love to provide the facts, but I’ll let someone more erudite do so… It’s the weekend... From the National Review Online’s Donald Luskin:

Actually, President Bush could make an even bigger claim. According to the establishment (or payroll) survey of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2 million jobs have been created since the summer of 2003. The official statistics show that 1.8 million jobs (not 1.7 million) have been created, with the BLS announcing on October 8 that it expects to revise the jobs numbers upward by 236,000 at next February’s annual “rebenchmarking.” …

Indeed, payroll jobs are down 821,000 since Bush took office (or down 585,000 if you include the BLS’s expected upward revision). But overall jobs — including self-employment, employment by small companies, and partnerships without official payrolls — are up 1.6 million, according to the BLS’s household survey. Not bad for the first president since Herbert Hoover to take the reins just when an historic stock market bubble was about to burst. Not bad for the first president in history to have to deal with a large-scale terrorist attack on American soil.

Kerry’s track-record on economic issues during this campaign is awful. He has fibbed about the war on corporate corruption, misled voters about outsourcing, and prevaricated about Medicare. His proposed tax strategy would punish the Americans who employ at least 50% of the country’s workers. When researching Senator Kerry’s economic record, I’ve tried to be fair, but cannot find anything that would lead me to vote for this man.