We Is …

At some point, we keep thinking we’re going to wake up to some decent economic news for a change – something, anything to indicate that the bleeding has stopped and the American free market is righting itself.

Or what’s left of the American free market, anyway.

For the time being, though, we’re just going to have to keep waiting.

With millions of jobs gone, consumer confidence in the tank and the Dow Jones shedding digits like a contestant on The Biggest Loser, it couldn’t get any worse, could it?

In a word, “yes.”

According to the preliminary February jobless data released today by the U.S. Department of Labor (which will invariably be “revised upward” next month), 650,000 jobs were lost last month – which would put America’s unemployment rate at 7.9%.

Think about that for a minute.

Over the past six months, 3.1 million people have lost their jobs and the politicians still haven’t figured this thing out.

Basically, at the one, critical time in our nation’s history when we need to be investing in our economy (and the families, small business and individual taxpayers who drive it), Republicans and Democrats in Washington have moved our country in precisely the opposite direction.

They’re pouring more money than ever before into government – and into government-sponsored bailouts, while sticking us and our children with the tab.

We’ve seen multiple comments on this site from fiery partisans blaming former President George W. Bush, President Barack Obama, Republican leaders and Democratic leaders, but the fact is that the evolution, botched response and opportunistic exacerbation of this unprecedented crisis is a shared failure.

“A plague on all their houses …” in other words.

Update – Apparently the 650,000 new unemployed folk bring the rate to 8.1%, not 7.9%. That’s a 25-year high.