Republicans hammer Obama over April job numbers
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
/ AP Photo/Jae C. HongUpdated: 2:29 p.m. ET
(CBS News) -- Seizing on April's report of slower job growth, Republicans on Friday targeted President Obama for implementing economic policies they argue are impeding economic recovery.
In an appearance on Fox News Friday, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called the report "very, very disappointing," and cited it as evidence that Mr. Obama's economic policies are not working.
"The American people are wondering why this recovering isn't happening faster, why it's taking years and years for the recovery to occur," Romney said. "And we seem to be slowing down, not speeding up and this is not progress."
"This is very, very disappointing and a lot of American people are having very hard times and this is not good news this morning," he added.
At a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, the former Massachusetts governor stayed on point, saying of the 8.1 percent unemployment rate: "[A]nything over 8 percent, anything near 8 percent, anything over 4 percent is not cause for celebration."
According to the report, the U.S. economy added 115,000 new jobs in April and the unemployment rate fell from 8.2 to 8.1 percent, the lowest level since January 2009.
Despite the drop in the unemployment rate, fewer jobs were created in April than any month since October 2011, when just 80,000 jobs were created.
In January, the economy added 275,000 jobs; February was revised upward to 259,000 from the originally reported 240,000; and March was also revised higher to 154,000 from 120,000. Including data released Friday, the average monthly job creation this year has been about 200,000.
"Today's report is more evidence President Obama's policies aren't working for families and small businesses, and aren't creating enough jobs to get our economy back on track," said House Speaker John Boehner, in a statement. "Where are the jobs?"
Boehner accused Mr. Obama of pushing "election-year gimmicks" like the Buffett Rule, a tax plan that would raise revenues for the wealthy, rather than supporting initiatives like the controversial Keystone XL oil pipeline that Republicans argue would speed up job growth.
And Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus called the job growth "anemic."
"President Obama's desperate hype-and-blame campaign will try to spin today's anemic jobs report six ways to Sunday, but the facts remain clear: too many Americans have been unemployed for far too long. For millions, the economy is simply not working," Priebus said in a prepared statement.
The Obama administration defended the nation's economic progress Friday, calling the monthly numbers "volatile" and pointing to the overall job growth in 2012 as evidence that the economy is healing.
"These numbers are volatile. Every month I say the same thing," said Alan Krueger, chairman of the president's council of economic advisers, in an appearance on MSNBC. "What you want to do is take a step back. Look at where the economy is headed, where it's coming from. Over the last four months we've added over 800,000 jobs. And the recovery is continuing. We have a long way to go given how deep the hole was, given the problems were building up over decades, but we're headed in a much better direction now and I think this report is further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal."
Questioned on why specifically the growth appeared to have slowed down in April, Krueger noted that in the first quarter of 2012, "we had the best job growth that we've had since 2006."
"I think you need to step back and kind of put these numbers in context," he said. "I think that we also have to recognize that given the severity of the recession, given the nature of the financial crisis, this recovery has faced a lot of headwinds. And in spite of those headwinds we've now had 26 months in a row of private sector job growth; we've had 11 quarters in a row of economic growth. The residential construction sector has shown growth over each o the last 4 quarters for the first time since 2005. So there are signs that the economy is healing from these very deep problems."
With reporting by Sarah Huisgenga.
Popular in Politics
- FBI director acknowledges domestic drone use
- Obama and Berlin: Faded echoes meet new realities
- Smooth, on-time Obamacare rollout no sure thing: GAO
- Obama on NSA programs: Americans "not getting the complete story" 259 Comments
- House Republicans pass 20-week limit on abortions 421 Comments
- Senators: U.S. must take "more decisive" military action in Syria
- Obama renews push for a nuclear disarmament legacy
- GOP Sen. Murkowski backs same-sex marriage
We need to bring manufacturing back to the United States of America and both parties are ignoring tariffs as a way to level the playing field, raise money and bring jobs back home. Let's guess why? - Oh that's right, tariff is a dirty word.
I guess we should keep letting Corp Boards, Wall Street and CEOs promote sending US jobs to countries where they work for slave wages, no benefits, no OSHA safety standards or no real environment regulations. How's that been working for us? The so-called "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field. Companies may have made higher profits by doing this, but they've been putting middle class Americans who are a good part of the world's customer base out of work. I'm not a lefty or member of any union. I run a business that employs over 20 people and produces products that are purchased by customers that do manufacturing and packaging. I'm just an average Joe, but I've been saying this for more than 10 years now. If I can see it, so can our so-called leaders (political leaders) who are beholden to the same people who are exporting our jobs.
We need to bring manufacturing back to the United States of America! This not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them. This should also include the safe harvesting, production and distribution of our own natural energy here in the USA, rather than paying for fuel from countries where they hate us. Let's keep that money and those jobs here in the US.
The "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field! We should provide tax incentives and if necessary even partial subsidies or grants to companies that manufacture products here in the USA with US Citizens. We need to add tariffs that are proportionate to the inequities in wages and regulations in the country where the goods were produced and or where we're importing them from. We could then use the money raised by these tariffs to help companies build state of the art manufacturing plants here in the USA, which would create more jobs here at home for US citizens, which would then in turn increase our income tax revenue. We also need to bring customer support services back to the United States of America and staff them with employees that are US Citizens. Both political parties sold out the American people by letting Wall Street, Corp Board of Directors and CEOs open the floodgates. There's nothing wrong with making a profit and people in these other countries deserve to earn a higher standard of living, but our leaders can't allow it to happen at the expense of the American people, who they're supposed to represent. Both the Democrats and Republicans have to stop just arguing along party lines and actually get things done that are in the best interests of the United States of America and all US Citizens, including the majority of our citizens.
Most US Citizens are not as concerned about the "Global Economy" as they are about being able to earn a living, their children's future and the future of our country. We may have to pay a bit more for products made here in the USA by US citizens, but at least we'll still have jobs and a future for our children.
The bottom line is that "Our Government" has to protect American industry and the jobs that those industries provide. If they do that, the rest will take care of itself.
It's obvious that the foreign interests are influencing our media as well, just watch the ABC Nightline special on Apple's iPhone and iPad products being made in China that ends with the biased comment "That you can be the nation that lines up to make these products or the nation the lines up to buy them, but it's impossible to be both". What bull crap propaganda! ABC has direct ties to Apple and Foxconn. http://economyincrisis.org/content/unethical-predatory-practices
Bringing manufacturing back to the United States of America not only gives jobs to the US citizens who would be working in those manufacturing facilities, but to the people that would be working in the businesses that would spring up all around them. The "Global Market Place" is not a level playing field! The whole idea of the tariffs is so we can pay our factory workers a decent wage and not be blown out by these other countries where they don't play by the same rules.
It should be about doing the right thing for our country and the majority of it's citizens.
Both parties have sold out the bulk of the American citizens, who they're supposed to represent, by allowing the "out-sourcing" floodgates to open wider and wider without taking any sensible measures to stem the tide. (Under Clinton jobs to China, Under Bush I & II influx of illegals or cheap easily abused labor into the US and jobs to Mexico/NAFTA)
All this single-minded, left versus right, ideological one dimensional bull crap has got to go! This is the problem the with our country. It shouldn't be about Democrats or Republicans! It should be about Americans, especially our elected officials, doing the right thing for our country and it's citizens.
A new book by Robert Draper titled "Do Not Ask What Good We Do" documents how republicans conspired to block everything President Obama proposes to bring the country out of the economic mess that republicans created. Why aren't reporters asking republicans why voters should reward them with votes for their unpatriotic, despicable, treasonous acts?
Republican teabagging extremist bigoted insurgents like B itch McConnell can't accept a Black Democratic president and are being uncooperative doing everything in their power to make sure he fails.
President Obama's biggest mistake was expecting republicans to bargain in good faith when in reality they are sabotaging anything President Obama does that might help average Americans at every turn in order to defeat him. Republicans have more allegiance to Grover Norquist and his pledge of never raise taxes under any circumstance than the constitution and country. Whatever happened to country first. F"ing treasonous republican hypocrites.
At this point, even Obama and his "brilliant" team of rocket scientists (like Geithner, Bernanke, etc) are capable of seeing that and could have adjusted policy -- IF job creation was Obama's goal. But it's not.
Obama wants an Americanized version of European Socialism (yes, the very model currently imploding on the world stage in Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Greece, etc). Obama only promised a change -- he didn't promise anyone that they would like his change.
Unemployment down to 8% from 10.5% - Actually, it's still 11% (if Obama was forced to use the same statistical models as Bush & Clinton... instead of reducing the "participating work force" base number). And Obama's U6 number is over 15% unemployment.
Housing markets are recovering <-- THAT is funny!
Dow is up to 13,000 from 7,500 at the depths of the 2008 crash - A bubble due to the glut of "Quantative Easing" free money from Obama/Bernanke/Geithner
bin Laden is dead - thanks to the military intel & security that Obama inherited from Bush... that SENATOR Obama voted against, FYI.
Combat Ops in Iraq are over - Tell that to the troops who are still being shot at... the only thing "over" is Obama's commitment to the military.
Auto industry was saved - Obama transferred ownership (via
Gas prices down 60 cents a gal. in the past month
Whoopee!! Gas averaged $1.90/gallon when Obama took office... they how average $3.60/gallon.
It's amazing how the libs really don't understand about the economy, real life, or what Obama ACTUALLY failed to do (instead of what he SAYS he did).
*********************
Apparently the republican machine believes that the unemployment number will be below 8% by November so they are preping their soft-headed followers with new talking points.
But Obama just ignores anyone that can't find a job before their unemployment checks run out, and voila! No longer counted as unemployed = instant reduction in Obama's jobless statistics! It's magic.
Government doesnt create jobs. But they do destroy them..
Unfortunately, Linda isnt smart enough to know that simple fact.
------
Mortar: the thing is that Romney is running for president and claiming that he can "fix the ecoonomy" by creating jobs. If this is true, then I would like to know exactly how he plans on doing this when he is president which is a branch of the government. His track record on creating jobs does matter as I would like to have some assurance that he can actually do what he says he can.
It hasn't worked in 30 years however they are still banging their heads against the wall to try and sell the idea.