Obama: Slow economy should be call for Congress to act
(CBS News) President Obama on Friday called the latest jobs report a sign of progress but said the marginal pace of economic growth should be a catalyst for Congress to act quickly to ensure middle-class Americans won't see their taxes go up next year.
Without mentioning that the unemployment rate rose from 8.2 percent in June to 8.3 percent in July, Mr. Obama noted that 172,000 private sector jobs were added to the economy last month (9,000 government jobs were lost, meaning there was a net gain of 163,000 jobs). He said that amounts to 4.5 million jobs created in the last 29 months and 1.1 million so far this year.
However, Mr. Obama said, "We've still got too many folks out there who are looking for work." In addition to creating more jobs, the president said the nation needs to "reclaim the kind of financial security too many Americans felt was slipping away from them for too long."
"We are not going to get there... if we go back to the policies that helped create this mess in the first place," Mr. Obama said. "The last thing we should be doing is asking middle class families who are still struggling to recover from this recession to pay more taxes."
The president urged Congress to extend the Bush-era tax breaks for the middle class, even if it needs more time to fight over whether to extend the tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans.
Job-creation picks up steam in July
GOP seizes on unemployment uptick in July jobs report
"Frankly, that issue is probably not going to be resolved until after November," Mr. Obama said with respect to the debate over extending the current tax rates for income over $250,000. "In the meantime, say we all agree on extending tax cuts for middle class families.... Let's keep taxes low for 98 percent of Americans, and we can argue over the other 2 percent."
Last week, the Democratic-led Senate passed a year-long extension of the tax cuts for all Americans, except for people earning more than $200,000 a year and couples making more than $250,000. Then this week, the GOP-led House rejected that plan and instead passed a plan to extend all of the tax breaks.
Mr. Obama today, with middle-class Americans standing behind him, accused House Republicans of holding the middle-class tax cuts "hostage."
"They want to give millionaires and billionaires and folks like me tax cuts that we don't need and that the country can't afford, even if middle class families have to pick up the tab for it," he said.
Without citing his political opponent by name, the president also referenced Mitt Romney's budget proposal and a recently-released study, which concluded the middle class would see their taxes go up under Romney's plan while taxes would go down for the wealthy.
"I just think we've got our priorities skewed if the notion is that we give tax breaks to folks who don't need them and to help pay for that, we tax folks who are already struggling to get by," he said. "That's not only top-down economics, that's upside-down economics."
In spite of Mr. Obama's calls for action, Congress won't be able to act on the tax legislation until September, after its five-week recess.
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He has created more chaos in the lives of Americans than any President I can remember.
Now; he wants another chance to further destroy our values and ideals, because he wasn't able to do enough damage as he planned during his first term.
Obama: the very least you can do is keep just one more of your promises; otherwise known as lies.!!
The national average should be between $5.50 to 8 hr.
If President Obama
and Congress were ACT now the job market will begin to improve and the unemployment
rate would drop rapidly.
Education, Education, Education, Education, Education, and
Education will always be the key to higher paying jobs.
Higher paying jobs would develop wants American ingenuity
increases down the road.
I believe if President Obama and Congress would enact this
change now.
The unemployment will drop to ZERO within 2 years for all
Americans.
Seriously, go back and re-read history instead of trying to re-write it all the time, since we've had the bush tax cuts and corporate tax breaks in place since early-on in the bush/cheney debacle, and what have they wrought -- a sluggish average economic growth rate of 1.7% and a net-zero job creation record, added to the worst economic downturn since the 1930s and the complete implosion of our financial sector during the bush years.
And what do willard roMONEY and 'lyin' ryan' propose for America -- even more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans paid for by the middle class, as well as more deregulation of the financial sector -- the same exact things that gave us the bush/cheney Great Recession!
LOL! Aren't you a scholar of history........NOT!
Yes, the obstructionist republicans can only block legislation meant to increase economic growth and create jobs, since they prove every day that they certainly want our economy to either stagnate or even get worse in order for them to usurp power.
They even made sure to block Senate Bill 3364, which would have "Brought Jobs Home" from overseas, since they want to keep giving corporate America and people like willard romney tax breaks and profits from offshoring more jobs to China and the rest of the world!
Link Por Favor
You are as bad as Shallow the Cretin and the Zionist Nazi boy.
-President Obama's newly proposed $450 billion job creation bill is equivalent to nearly 3% of GDP, so if it was passed by Congress as it stands it would certainly have a significant impact on GDP growth in 2012, which we currently expect to be only 2%. The big question, however, is whether an otherwise hopelessly split Congress can agree to pass any of the multitude of different measures the bill includes? -Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2011/09/08/economists-react-gauging-impact-of-obama-jobs-proposal/
by VooDooChile- August 3, 2012 5:54 PM EDT, Said:
"Now that Obama want's the Congress to carry his sorry butt...(whine, whine, whine)"
========================
LOL!....Yeah, sure...Obama should just act on his own (without congress), right?
Stop proving to the rest of us that:
(a) You don't understand how your own government works.
(b) You therefore, need an education,
(c) and, you "whine" a lot, like a typical Republi-minion.
----
Hey Shallow, your middle name is whine, moan and Bia-tch.
Oh, and liar. VooDoo said it right.
Your problem is that you refuse to read the writing on the wall and how worthless Barry really is. You have very low standards and love to back losers and posers but are in serious denial.
You need to see that Obama is the fly in the ointment and has the Congress in Neutral with the gridlock he has caused.
You better wake up to reality and shove you a,b,c list in your ear since your are as big a buffoon as your master Obama.
I'm going to imitate you now, Shallow.
LMAO!!!! and LOL! and LMAO, more LOL and some more LMAO for good measure like the clown you really are giggling your brains out.
Now that is Funny!
You're welcome
I'm going to imitate you again since you changed up for my benefit.
(hehehehehehe!)???
'Save me and my super fiasco of a presidency I caused all by myself.
I anit worth a dogs poop but I need to blame you Congress so I can hope to get reelected to really finish fricken up the country.
What a coward and no conscience piece of dung he is.
BTW; love your login name.