You may be “shocked” to hear this but George W. Bush and his administration have lied almost continuously about the state of the US economy since they came to power 5 years ago. As Paul Krugman has been saying consistently, the stats put out the bureau of labor statistics have been at best misleading if not downright bullshit. Well the bls has now published revised statistics about the job market for the period January 2001 to January 2006. Over at smirkingchimp.com Paul Craig Roberts has posted a scathing indictment of the bush economy titled Nuking the economy. Here is a small sample:

No sane economist can possibly maintain that a deplorable record of merely 1,054,000 net new private sector jobs over five years is an indication of a healthy economy. The total number of private sector jobs created over the five year period is 500,000 jobs less than one year’s legal and illegal immigration! (In a December 2005 Center for Immigration Studies report based on the Census Bureau’s March 2005 Current Population Survey, Steven Camarota writes that there were 7,9 million new immigrants between January 2000 and March 2005.)

Just so you don’t think he is some lefty liberal like Krugman, here is his bio from the bottom of the article:

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

Go over and read the article, it is not that long and worth the read. If you are having trouble telling when Bush is lying about something, just remember, his lips will be moving.