THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you for coming. Please be seated. Today, I want to talk about jobs. Now normally I make
it a point to only talk about jobs when I'm in a non-union factory somewhere, surrounded by a carefully screened throng of
blue collar ignoramuses too starstruck to know or care that their bosses and I are conspiring to replace them with seven
year-old asiatics. It's never fun, all that mingling with the great pungent unwashed, but we do get some top-notch footage for
campaign commercials.
But today I'm breaking with protocol to make a quick point. Last week, my staff released the annual "Economic Report of the President,"
in which all of our best and brightest accounting nerds take all those terrible figures about jobs and deficits and consumer
confidence and still somehow paint a rosy picture for the year ahead. Truth is, in that way they're just like America's greatest painter, Thomas Kinkaid.
My wife has always said that Kinkaid guy could blow away Pablo Picasso in an art duel even if he had to paint those cottages with
a steaming bucket of sludge. Because hey – if you've got the raw talent and the creativity, you can create faux beauty out
of almost anything – indeed, even from nothing! And so it is with the Economic Report.
Now deep within that report was a certain numerical figure relating to an estimate of how many new American jobs will be created
during 2004. As you know, America has lost a grand total of 2.2 million jobs since I took office, and if something isn't done
soon – even if only on paper – I'll have the worst job record since that Herbert Hoover guy everyone always jokes about. Well
that's what we were trying to do: plop a big fat number in there that flat out erases unemployment, irregardless of any annoying
"reality." Well wouldn't you know it, ever since I released that report, a whole lot of people have been pointing at that number –
whatever it was – and plain old busting out laughing. Now if there's one thing I cannot abide, it's folks laughing at
me. Once in college, a DEKE pledge laughed at me for popping wood in the shower. I'd tell you his name, but he's been
a missing person for going on 36 years now.
So yeah, "jobs" or whatever. Hard as it is for me personally to believe, I'm told that not only are there hundreds of millions
of Americans who don't live off the interest from trust funds, but that most of them actually have to demonstrate competence
and drive to get their jobs. I mean, what's wrong with these people? Don't they have the good sense to plan ahead and be
born into a famous name and a dynasty with lots of money and connections and Ivy League dormitories named after their relatives?
Apparently not. But I want the American people to know something. Contrary to what the Democrats may say, I'm extremely worried
about people losing jobs. In particularly... ME.
I know the voters are getting increasingly mad and impatient with what would appear to the untrained eye to be my utter incompetence
on the employment front. And that's why today, I wanted to clarify just what I meant in that report that I signed last week. It's
time to give the voters some real DETAILS about how many jobs they can expect, and just how I'm going to do it. I know
that people want these job things, and my administration has SPECIFIC plans to deliver them, including:
- Building on the foundations of initiatives to foster rigorous achievement within select employment-related activities.
- Laying the groundwork to stimulate key indicators spurring the continuing effects of increased program proprosals.
- Enacting forward-thinking eliminations of provisions serving as hindrances to the perception of advancement and success.
- Establishing a task force to explore the creation of theory-generating committees intent on redefining job-associated strategies.
- Accelerating consideration of workplace incentives and adjustments that are custom-formulated to foster would-be pro-activeness.
- And lastly, providing eligible persons access to a full array of long-distance telephone numbers established for the direct
facilitation of Department of Labor voicemail recordings.
And once we do all that, I'm pleased to be able to guarantee that we will have achieved a perceptible leap forward in identifying
jobs that are quantifiable through the usage of mathematic integers.
(Applause.)
So there you have it. I've got unemployment ALL WRAPPED UP!
Thank you, and God Bless America.
###
White House Information:
