Today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the economy added 171,000 jobs last month, beating analysts’ expectations. The private sector added 184,000 jobs (offset by some public sector losses), making this the 32nd consecutive month that the private sector has grown.

Overall, even accounting for the horrific month for jobs that was January 2009, the private sector has added 759,000 jobs overall under Obama. At this same point in the George W. Bush administration — October 2004 — the private sector had lost more than 1 million jobs. This chart shows the difference:

During the entirety of the Bush administration, the private sector ended up losing nearly 650,000 jobs.

The only reason that the unemployment rate did not spike during Bush’s first term is that the public sector so derided by conservatives was rapidly adding jobs. If the public sector had added jobs at the historical pace under Obama, rather than hemorrhaging hundreds of thousands of jobs, the unemployment rate would be under 7 percent today.

Data compiled by Jane Farrell.

Today’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the American economy added 114,000 jobs in September. BLS also revised the job gains for July and August up by a total of 86,000, and the report contained several other good signs for the economy. The private sector has now added jobs for 31 consecutive months, and there are more than 600,000 more total jobs than there were when Obama took office, even though the public sector continues to lag behind.

At the same point in his administration, President George W. Bush’s record wasn’t as positive. Through 44 months, the private sector had lost more than 1 percent of its jobs (under Obama, it has gained 0.46 percent), and the only reason Bush could claim positive overall growth was because the public sector had grown by almost 4 percent.

Both presidents experienced recessions early in their terms, but as this chart from Nick Bunker and Michael Linden from the Center for American Progress shows, the labor market has recovered faster under Obama even though the Great Recession was deeper and more painful than the 2001 recession:

Under Obama, the public sector has shrunk by more than 600,000 jobs, increasing only while the government conducted the 2010 Census. Without those losses, the unemployment rate would be near 7 percent. The unemployment rate would be lower still had Republicans not blocked the American Jobs Act, which economists estimated would have added more than one million jobs to the economy.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s tax plan would be a boon for the wealthiest Americans, a fact Romney himself admitted in GOP primary debates.

Now, though, Romney has decided that cutting taxes for the rich isn’t what his plan will do, and he insists that he won’t support any tax plan — even his own, apparently — that provides the rich with a massive tax cut. “I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans,” Romney said in last night’s presidential debate.

The last Republican president used a similar argument to sell his tax proposal when he was running for election. At a debate on October 3, 2000, George W. Bush made the exact same claim, telling debate moderator Jim Lehrer that once his tax plan became law, “the wealthiest of Americans” would “pay more taxes”:

BUSH: Let me tell you what the facts are. The facts are, after my plan, the wealthiest of Americans pay more taxes on the percentage of the whole than they do today. Secondly, if you’re a family of four making $50,000 in Massachusetts, you get a 50% tax cut.

Watch it:

Bush’s tax cuts eventually became law, and as a result, the wealthy got a massive tax cut. In addition to rate cuts on income taxes, the Bush tax cuts included cuts to the capital gains rate and other investment taxes and an estate tax cut, all of which largely benefit the rich. The plan came at a cost of $2.5 trillion over its first decade.

And while Bush was technically correct that the rich did “pay more taxes on the percentage of the whole,” that is “a useless measure of tax progressivity,” as Center for American Progress Director of Tax and Budget Policy Michael Linden has explained. The share of taxes paid by the wealthy grew by 25 percent under Bush, but their share of income grew by 30 percent, evidence that they actually got a massive tax cut. Bush’s promise, just like Romney’s, is a vague misdirection meant to distract from the overall tax cut he planned to provide.

Romney’s plan, at a cost of nearly $5 trillion, is even bigger. And though Romney at least says he will cover some of the cost, the closure of loopholes wouldn’t offset the cuts for the rich, and to avoid adding to the deficit, he would have to raise taxes on the middle class. Romney relies on another similar argument Bush used, insisting that economic growth will offset the remaining costs. But the Bush tax cuts were followed by years of tepid job and economic growth that blew a massive hole in the federal budget and left Bush flailing when it came to his promise to pay off the national debt in a decade.

A Republican National Committee spokesperson earlier this year said that Romney’s economic policies would be “Bush, just updated.” It turns out his arguments are too. (HT Chris Hayes)

Sixty-eight percent of Americans — including 49 percent of Republicans — say President George W. Bush is responsible for the state of today’s economy, a new Gallup poll finds.

Indeed, the country is still reeling from Bush’s disastrous economic stewardship. His irresponsible tax cuts and deregulatory policies have contributed significantly to the slow recovery and are partly responsible for the nation’s economic plight. Here are 5 reasons why:

1. Deregulated Wall Street: It was a great time to be a Wall Street executive during the Bush administration. Sweeping financial deregulation helped build the housing bubble and allowed financial institutions to pursue risky trades unchecked. In fact, Bush eliminated the rules that allowed Wall Street to cause the financial crash that plunged the nation into the Great Recession.

2. Cut Taxes For The Wealthy: The Bush tax cuts — over 50 percent of which benefited the richest 5 percent of American taxpayers — cost about $2.5 trillion over the decade after they were enacted. Ten years later, Bush’s tax cuts are still the main driving factor of the national debt:

3. Ran Up A Tab On Two Wars: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost the country trillions of dollars. Combined with Bush’s tax cuts, war spending was a main factor in blowing up the deficit and spending the surplus accumulated under Clinton. Lawmakers now use the deficit as an excuse for inaction.

4. Left Homeowners In A Lurch: While Bush was happy to help out the banks in the wake of the housing crisis, he did little to assist struggling homeowners. Hope For Homeowners, Bush’s proposal to assist those struggling with their mortgages, was a colossal failure; in its first six months, it helped just one homeowner renegotiate his mortgage. Many mortgage holders — 15.7 million or, one in three — are still underwater today.

5. Weakened Workers: Bush weakened worker safety regulations and collective bargaining rights under the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Department of Labor throughout his time in office. Today, corporations are back to making record profits, while workers’ incomes are falling.