Democrats’ Jobs Summit Farce

Democrats’ Jobs Summit Farce

DECEMBER 3, 2009

"Statistics mean little for those who have lost a job, taken a pay cut, or watched their loved ones searching for work.  Congress will continue to work every day on new and innovative approaches to expanding the job market, and do everything in our power to put Americans back to work."

 

                                  -Speaker Nancy Pelosi, November 6, 2009                                       

Today, the President is holding a "jobs summit" that he says is not about creating jobs. Unemployed workers don't need more talk from Washington, they need action.  Unfortunately, the only action Democrats seem to be concerned with is more spending on job destroying government takeovers of health care and energy.  Here are the facts:

 

          Ø  There are 15.7 million unemployed Americans looking for work-the highest number ever and an increase of 3.2 million since the Democrats trillion dollar "stimulus" was passed into law.

           Ø  The unemployment crisis is even worse for the nation's most vulnerable workers.  Among African Americans, unemployment is over 15 percent.  For Hispanics, the rate is 13.1 percent.  Unemployment for young workers under 19 years old is a staggering 27.6 percent.  And unemployment among those without high school degrees is 15.5 percent.

           Ø  In Allentown, Pennsylvania, where the President will begin his so-call "Main Street" tour to talk about jobs tomorrow, unemployment is 12.5 percent.

           Ø  Several unemployment indicators are at all-time highs, including unemployment among men (10.7 percent), underemployment (17.5 percent), average weeks unemployed (26.9 percent),  and unemployment for individuals with high school degrees (11.2 percent).

           Ø  There are 9.3 million people that are only employed part time because they cannot find full-time employment.

           Ø  In September, Vice President Biden said of the "stimulus" that, "In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this well."  Despite Biden's claims, the Democrats' stimulus has failed to slow unemployment, and the White House has been unable to provide an accurate estimate of jobs they claim have been "created or saved."  When asked why there were so many job reporting errors, Recovery.gov spokesman Ed Pound said, "Who knows, man, who really knows. There are 130,000 reports out there."

           Ø  The Democrats policy agenda will destroy jobs in the U.S.  The Democrat budget contained over $1.5 trillion in crushing tax increases over the next 10 years.  These huge tax hikes on families, small businesses, and workers will slow economic growth and cost jobs.  House Democrats also passed a national energy tax as part of the "cap and tax" legislation.  According to one study, 2.3 to 2.7 million jobs would be lost per year for the next twenty years as a result of the energy tax.   And Speaker Pelosi's government takeover of health care would kill jobs by imposing $729.5 billion in higher taxes on a struggling economy, including $135 billion in taxes on businesses who cannot afford to finance their workers' health coverage and taxes on individuals without insurance.  A model developed by chief Obama advisor Christina Romer indicates that as many as 5.5 million jobs could be lost from the bill's new taxes.

 

What Americans need now are real solutions to the job crisis-not more talk and showboating for the media.  Democrats need to stop the spending, stop the government takeovers, and sit down with Republicans to find ways to create jobs now.   The Speaker says that Congress will work every day to create jobs.  So why aren't they?