In the Weekly Republican Address, Senate Republican Policy Committee Chairman John Thune explains how President Obama's economic and regulatory policies are making things worse.

Sen. Thune says, "For months now, my Republican colleagues and I have been saying that President Obama has made our economy worse since he took office. This past week, even he admitted that the American people are not better off than they were four years ago. Just since his inauguration in 2009, there are two million more people unemployed, six million more people living in poverty, and 13 million more on food stamps. Our federal debt has increased by 39 percent. That's more than $4 trillion dollars."

On the president's latest stimulus proposal, Sen. Thune points out, "President Obama's policies are damaging our economy, and his proposed solutions are not serious. His latest stimulus bill is so flawed that Senate Democrats have rejected it and are rewriting it, not to grow jobs, but to improve their political standing. It's nothing but a rehash of the same failed ideas he's already tried, combined with a huge tax increase. This is a cynical political ploy that's designed not to create jobs for struggling Americans, but to save the president's own job. This cannot continue."

For a positive step, Sen. Thune points to the free trade agreements which have bipartisan support and can create jobs. "[W]e can finally implement the free trade agreements we've negotiated with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea.... Altogether, these three trade deals will boost U.S. exports by more than $12 billion. And all that new exporting means new U.S. jobs -- 70,000 of them as a result of the South Korea agreement alone. So I was glad to see that President Obama finally submitted the trade deals to Congress, after letting them sit on his desk for almost 1,000 days. It's extremely unfortunate that we had to wait so long for the president to do something so simple, to help promote American exports, and create American jobs.... Republicans in Congress are ready to take up these trade deals, so Americans can get back to work. I hope the Democrats will join us in this effort."

Sen. Thune also points out the problems with President Obama's regulations and the lawsuit against Boeing from the National Labor Relations Board. He says, "Regulations and excessive red tape kill jobs, increase our dependence on foreign oil, and impose costs that American business owners cannot afford."

Sen. Thune concludes, "Washington, under President Obama has grown too powerful, and has hurt job creation. Too often Washington is the problem, not the solution, and we've seen the results since President Obama was sworn in and started moving our country in the wrong direction. The president is right when he says that Americans are not better off today than they were four years ago. And if we're going to get off this wrong track that he's put us on, President Obama has got to change course."

Senate Republicans called for a vote yesterday on the president's "new" stimulus bill, which he has been urging Congress to take up. When Democrats objected to the vote, the reason for the Senate's delay in taking up the bill became clear: even members of the president's own party think his second stimulus bill won't work. Senate Republicans continue to push for measures that will actually spur job creation: reducing the deficit, eliminating burdensome regulations, and lowering taxes on job creators.

When the president and Democrats forced their budget-busting health care legislation through Congress over the American people's objections, the president promised, among other things, that Americans wouldn't see their premiums rise. Now a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation confirms that was just one more piece of false information. In fact, the health care law is already contributing to a rise in premiums - and it hasn't even been fully implemented yet. It's high time for Congress to repeal the Democrats' broken health care law and replace it with reforms that will actually lower costs.