(CBS News) In his weekly address Saturday, President Obama criticized Republicans in Congress for thwarting passage of his jobs bill - which he believes contains "the answers" to stimulating sluggish economic growth and job creation - and for postponing action that would benefit the economy until after the November election.
The American Jobs Act, Mr. Obama said, is "full of the kinds of bipartisan ideas that could have put over a million Americans back to work and helped bolster our economy against outside shocks." He did credit Congress with passing "a few parts" of the bill since it arrived on Capitol Hill last September, but blamed partisan gridlock for holding up the remainder of his plan.
"On most of the ideas that would create jobs and grow our economy," President Obama said, "Republicans in Congress haven't lifted a finger. They'd rather wait until after the election in November."
Remaining elements of the bill that President Obama would like to see passed, he said, include grants to states that would put teachers, firefighters, and police officers back to work; tax breaks for small-business owners who hire more workers; and an opportunity for homeowners to save an average of $3,000 a year by refinancing their mortgage.
"This isn't about who wins or loses in Washington," Mr. Obama said. "This is about your jobs, your paychecks, your children's future. There's no excuse for Congress to stand by and do nothing while so many families are struggling - none."
Delivering the Republicans' weekly address, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker - still fresh off a historic win in the state's recall election - argued that President Obama's ideas are cemented in big government which, he said, is "not the answer."
"Sadly, the president and many of his allies seem to measure success by how many people are dependent on government programs," Walker said. "Those policies have failed. In contrast, I and many other Republicans define success in just the opposite way - by how many people we can free from government dependence by growing the private sector.
"Now that doesn't mean we want to throw folks off of unemployment," Walker added. "Instead, we want people no longer dependent on government because they have a job. When more of our fellow citizens have work in the private sector there will be more freedom and more prosperity in our country. That's a good thing - a very good thing."
What I have had to do since Obama became President is to lay off all my employees and hire part-timers and temps to fill in work gaps. As much as I despised Bush's policies, business was at least in full production.
Remember: Presidents don't create jobs--employers and taxpayers do.
Starting in 2010, we have had annual net Growth in "Made In America" manufacturing jobs in contrast to the annual net losses we had every single year many years before. More than 210,000 "Made In America" manufacturing were created in 2010, more than 233,000 in 2011, and more than 120,000 in the first 3 months of 2012. The National Domestic Product has gradually increased from 2009 to 2011. Moreover, almost 2 million people and many small businesses have enjoyed tax cuts. Today, June 14, 2012 President Obama sends his new budget to our Congress for approval. The main content of his budget is to achieve his goal of $4 trillion deficit reduction over ten years through cuts in government spending and higher taxes for wealthy people.
One more critical achievement is that Obama had an exit strategy for the war in the Middle East and has eliminated two top Al Qaeda leaders.
Did Congress Provide Any Laws to Create Jobs During Almost Two Years?
I have no answer at this moment. Please read this Website and come up with any laws provided by Congress for a compelling counter argument to Obama's thought: The GOP hasn't lifted a finger to create jobs. If you can't produce the counter argument then prove or disprove: Obama has created at least 3.1 million jobs during the last consecutive 27 weeks. What do you think about this Website?: http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/03/08/things-the-republican-congress-has-done-instead-of-creating-jobs/
Readers would appreciate the truth because the truth is always shining under the sun, but it is never shining in the darkness due to lack of education.
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Any counterargument with compelling evidences will be appreciated.
What has the President Obama done so far?
Some indicators show that the economy is gradually recovering.
During three years and a half the economy has shown both positive and negative signs. Our economy has begun to recover gradually after three years of a severe recession. We were faced with an unemployment rate of 12.5% on Dec 2008 due to many reasons such as house bubbles, an escalating foreclosure rate, banks refusing to loan, a 700 billion US$ bail out in 2007 to rescue Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie Mae, Washington Mutual, Indy Mac Bank, ....
In 2009, the government continued the economic stimulus plan with about 185 billion US$. Consequently, it halted the economic free fall and ended the recession. However, we still have a moderate reduction of the unemployment rate from 12.5% in Dec 2008,http://econompicdata.blogspot.com/2008/12/broader-unemployment-to-125.html, http://www.epi.org/publication/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict_20081205/ to about 10% from 2010-2011, and to about 8.1% on May, 2012. In 2012, many positive economic indicators prove the stimuli of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have worked.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was around 8,550 at the end of 2008 but has risen above 13,000 on May 02, 2012.
The rate of unemployment has dropped to about 8.2% on April and 8.1% on May, 2012. Private companies added 228,000 jobs in February 2012, 201,000 jobs in March, and 119,000 jobs in April. Personal income rose 0.4%.
To that end, the Congressional GOP has proposed cutting taxes on corporations and the ultra-wealthy, raising taxes on the poor and middle class, attacking labor unions, undermining efforts to improve the health, welfare, and income opportunities of women, and making it more difficult for minorities, students, and senior citizens to vote.
This is all part of the Republican Party's "if the economic recovery and health care reform fails, the GOP wins" mentality. Ever since Obama took office, their primary goal has been to make the claim that "we hope Obama's policies will fail" become a self-fulfilling prophesy, even at the detriment of the American public.
In short, the Republican Party has been displaying all of the symptoms of Munchhausen syndrome by proxy.
1. Mittens says the President is to blame for the Great Recession.
Answer: George W. Bush 2000-2007 bad economic principles in deregulating the housing industry, deregulating Wall Street, removing funds for FEMA, removing National Security funding and opening the doors to a mucked up environment leading to 9/11.
2. Mittens says it is President Obama's fault for having a lack of money every year.
Answer: George W. Bush gave President Obama a $1.3 trillion budget deficit in 2008. Collectively the National Debt increase $8 trillion during the years of the two Bush Presidents because they waged wars and did not increase taxes to pay for the wars so the next President would have to clean up their mess.
So why not just issue a royal decree that we will give another trillion dollars to "Teachers, firemen and police" that got stolen by the state governments. That worked so well in 2009.
Romney wants to cut personal income tax rates 20%, which means that working and middle class Americans will get an extra $500 or $2,000 back, and Mitt and his millionaire friends will get millions back. And he wants to preserve the Bush tax cuts (which gave most of their benefits to the 1%) and the 15% rate for capital gains, dividends, and "carried interest," and minimal "death taxes." And his lower corporate tax rates would shift even MORE of the burden of all federal government expenditures onto taxes on working Americans.
Romney supports Paul Ryan's voucher plan for Medicare, which would shift the burden of all future health care cost increases from all workers to retired workers, almost half of whom have NO source of income other than Social Security. How's THAT gonna work?
Romney wants to INCREASE how much we spend on defense to 4% of GDP. And DECREASE how much we spend on every else to 16% of GDP. That's the reverse of what we should be doing if we're trying to increase jobs in EITHER the private or the public sector. And it means huge cuts in every program that helps support individual Americans (Social Security, unemployment compensation, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, WIC) and huge cuts in every program that protects individual Americans (FDA, FAA, OSHA, CPSA, FCC, etc.).
If budget cuts don't cut federal regulation enough, Romney wants to cut regulation more. After all, he argues, the free market is fully capable of regulating itself. Like it did in the Crash of 2008!
If throwing money at rich people and eliminating regulation sounds familiar, that's because it's been the Republican siren song for three decades now...and it's NEVER worked. All it's produced for 30 years is anemic job growth, falling median incomes, and ever increasing inequality. "Trickle down" and deregulation are VERY productive for folks who are already rich; they're a pure disaster for the bottom 80% of the income distribution.
If that's what you want, that's what a vote for Mitt Romney will produce.
This is well written and worthy reposting on another article.