Issue Position: Jobs

Issue Position

Every job added to our economy is a family that gets back on its feet, so the recent drop in the seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate to 8.3% last month is a good thing.

Unemployment was 6.5% when Barrack Obama was elected. It stood at 7.8% when he took office and rose within a year to over 10% at the seasonally-adjusted rates.

But the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress have written off millions of Americans who have dropped out of the labor market, not to retire but out of despair. Many of these long-term unemployed or under-employed Americans are my neighbors and yours.

Please take a look at the so-called the "U6" tables from the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The "U6" tables include those who are "marginally attached" to the labor force and the "under-employed" who have accepted part-time jobs when they are really looking for full-time employment.

By this standard, the real unemployment in January 2012 was 15.1%, seasonally adjusted.

No, that wasn't a misprint. 15.1%. Please have a look at the BLS table directly. Some accounts put this rate even higher.

I believe the best way to get our economy moving again is for government to get out of the way as much as possible, to unleash the creativity of the private sector.

If elected to Congress, I will work to:

*Repeal Obamacare, the biggest job-kller of them all

*Rein in the EPA and the NLRB from harassing business with expensive regulations and frivolous lawsuits

*Develop domestic energy

*Promote government research at NIH -- a legitimate use of taxpayer dollars -- and help resolve the traffic jam-up on Rockville Pike caused by BRAC.

*Work for real tax and entitlement reform that puts our fiscal house in order.

The economy likes certainty. Businesses aren't investing because they don't know what their future taxes, healthcare costs, and regulatory mandates will be. The best way to create jobs is through growth, not out-of-control government programs that take money out of the productive economy and move it to pet government projects like Solyndra. Government does not know best.

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