House Ways and Means Chairman (and Bullshit artist) Kevin Brady.

Thanks to Sam Stein at the Huffington Post for pointing out another example of how vile the Republican leadership can be. First, here’s a glowing press release about today’s report on last month’s job gains from the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Kevin Brady:

And here’s Brady’s release last year when the job gains were nearly the same:

Note: Later revisions brought the February 2016 number down from 242,000 to 237,000.

As explained in my coverage of today’s job report, during his campaign for the presidency, Donald Trump claimed the actual unemployment rate was 42 percent last year, and called the Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers a “hoax.” He adopted that bogus percentage from David Stockman, the supply side charlatan who served as Ronald Reagan’s budget director. The percentage was arrived at by counting as “unemployed” people who were retired, disabled, in school, or taking care of young children, the sick or aged instead of being part of the work force.