:: By: Larry Walker, Jr. ::

Mr. Obama visited the padlock maker Master Lock in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on Wednesday, but wasn’t joined by Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who greeted the president upon arrival, but canceled his escort duties. Hey, so he was already sick to his stomach, and hanging out with Obama would have surely made matters worse.

During the event, after taking full credit for the whopping 100 jobs that Master Lock has brought back to Wisconsin from China, one of Obama’s many fabrications for the day, he added, “For the first time since 1990, American manufacturers are creating new jobs.”

However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there were 17,881,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States at the beginning of 1990, and only 17,395,000 by the end of that year (as seasonally adjusted). And by the end of the year 2000, the number had declined to 17,178,000 (shown graphically above).

Following the decline through to the end of the year 2008, the number of manufacturing jobs had fallen all the way to 12,849,000. In fact, by January of 2012, the latest statistics available prior to Obama’s speech, the BLS reported that the number of manufacturing jobs had fallen to just 11,862,000, which is almost one million fewer than when Obama first implemented his vision for America. So Obama is still delusional. What else is new?

Obama then continued with his own brand of manufacturing; the truth that is. He said, “It’s time to stop rewarding companies that ship jobs overseas and start rewarding companies that are creating jobs right here in the United States of America.”

So was it a reward that caused Master Lock to bring an entire 100 jobs back from China to Wisconsin? Did the company’s actions have anything remotely to do with Obama’s tax and regulatory policies? Obviously not, since Obama has yet to do anything to encourage such behavior. What has he done other than threaten companies with higher income taxes, Obamacare taxes, and more regulations? Not much to speak of, other than bailing out big banks and the GSE’s, and subsidizing the auto industry and the soon to be bankrupt Green Energy sector.

He rambled on, “Manufacturing is coming back. Companies are starting to bring jobs back. The economy is getting stronger. The recovery is speeding up. We’re moving in the right direction. And now we have to do everything in our power to keep our foot on the gas… And the last thing we can afford to do is go back to the same policies that got us into this mess.” YeeHa!

Man, that’s a lot of hoopla over 100 jobs. Studying the chart above, and considering Obama’s pedal to the metal analogy, if manufacturing is coming back, and if this alleged comeback is attributable to his Administration, then it looks like the government just needs to borrow and spend another $10 trillion (or so) and that should be enough get us back to where we left off in 1989. Keep on dreaming Mr. Obama!

Now as far as the policies that got us into this “mess”, I’m not sure which mess he’s referring to. Does he mean the mess we’re in now (i.e. $16 trillion in debt), or the mess that got us into the mess, that got us into the mess we’re in now? Does he mean that the policies of the relatively high tax era were bad, or the two relatively low tax eras which surrounded it? Or does he mean that the free-trade policies implemented in the 1990’s are the problem? I don’t think Obama even knows what he means. Not that anyone really cares what he says anymore.

Most of us are more focused on the $5 trillion the government has borrowed over the last three years, in this massive effort to get us virtually nowhere. What about that Mr. Obama? I think Congress should appoint an independent auditor to determine exactly where all that money went. I mean Obama has squandered a heck of a lot of money, and we have next to nothing to show for it.

Who knew? Maybe our future lies in padlocks. I suppose we’re going to need lots of locks just to keep our stuff safe from this new breed of fair share politicos. And in the meantime, it wouldn’t hurt to place one of those gigantic Master Locks on the U.S. Treasury.