President Obama’s key adviser Valerie Jarrett campaigned for the president last night at NC Central in Durham. As The Weekly Standard reports, at one point Jarrett repeated the falsehood that unemployment benefits stimulate the economy. Ms. Jarrett is a smart woman – smart enough to know that scooping water from one end of the pool and dumping into the other end does NOT give you more water.  If Ms. Jarrett’s claim is true, then let’s ALL collect unemployment benefits and get this economy roaring again!

Regardless, the unemployment-benefits-are-stimulus mantra will be part of the president’s re-election rhetoric, and no doubt the president’s supporters will buy it. The conversation we should be having — and which the president and his surrogates clearly don’t want to have — is how the current administration’s economic policies are prolonging a recession and keeping employers and investors on the sidelines.