Good news, bad news–unemployment dropped rather sharply to 9.0%, following an identical 0.4% drop from 9.8% from November to December. Unfortunately, it’s not such great news. Only 36,000 jobs–an anemic number–were added in January, and while that’s still significantly better than the -740,000-job hole Bush left us with in January 2009, it’s not nearly enough.

Last month, Republicans laughably tried to take credit for the drop in unemployment after taking the reins of the House for only 19 days. Being consistently inconsistent, they are now claiming that a second similar drop is not enough. Make up your minds already.

Something is interesting about the news articles on this, and maybe one reason why people can’t see the Republican claims as being ridiculous lies. From the AP:

The unemployment rate dropped sharply last month to 9 percent, based on a government survey that found that more than a half-million people found work.

The Washington Post:

The jobless rate fell to 9 percent in January from 9.4 percent in December and 9.8 percent in November. In a promising sign, the improvement in January reflected the success of nearly 600,000 more people in finding work. By contrast, the rate fell in December in part because people had dropped out of the labor force, too discouraged perhaps to even look for work.

Funny how none of these articles mentions that the unemployment rate is a lagging indicator, which allowed me to predict the current changes in the unemployment rate last October. What we’re seeing now reflects the pop we saw about nine months ago when jobs went in the black for the first time in a few years. A few months later, the number of new jobs dipped, and though we haven’t gone negative on average, we’re more or less trading water–meaning that, in all likelihood, the unemployment rate fall will slow or stop soon (maybe the reason why Republicans stopped trying to take credit for it).

And while Obama has been trying to get us back on track with new stimulus spending, Republicans have countered with demands for cuts (except their massive increase in the form of the tax deal, mostly for wealthy people who don’t need them). A lot of those cuts–aside from the usual stabs at “liberal” spending like for PBS–are for infrastructure, job creation, education, scientific research–some of the best values in both short- and long-term investment. A great deal of what the Republicans are trying to cut represent lots of jobs–in short, they say we can create jobs by cutting jobs. Some of their proposals are painful–like the one-time sale of federal properties which are unused, with not a whisper of charging for public resources the government currently gives away to big business.

Even if they were actually serious and could really cut spending–doubtful–we would still be sinking further into this deep pit, and it probably would not have a positive effect on jobs–just like continuing the Bush tax cuts won’t have a positive effect.

The good news is, at least now they’re coming out with proposals, actual ideas–a significant change from before. The bad news is, they’re mostly the wrong ideas, ones that will likely hurt more than help, many of them simply having no effect at all.